CMYK

Max. 43.1oC/ Min. 30oCMoonset: Monday – 01.30 amMoonrise: Sunday – 12.42 amSunset: Sunday – 7.17 pmSunrise: Monday – 5.23 am

Mainly clear skies with dust haze. Dust storm orthunderstorm accompanied by squalls is likely insome areas. Maximum relative humidity on Friday67% and minimum 22%.

AFP

WEATHER

Indo-Pak talks: Pakistan foreign minis-ter Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri has said inan interview to the Pakistan daily TheNews that talks between India and Pak-istan would be held this month-end or inearly July. However, MEA maintain that itis too early to speak of talks. P8

Curfew in Jalandhar: Curfew wasclamped in more areas of Jalandhar onSaturday as caste violence continued forthe third day. FIRs were registeredagainst Punjab BJP vice-president VijayaSampla, district BSP chief Pawan Tinu forallegedly instigating riots. P8

Suu Kyi’s detention: The United Na-tions has expressed concern over the de-tention of Opposition leader Aung SanSuu Kyi even as the US voiced supportfor more economic sanctions against themilitary regime. P15

Kabul car bomb-attack: Three Ger-man peacekeepers were among six peo-ple killed by a devastating car-bomb at-tack on a bus carrying foreign peace-keeping troops in Kabul. P15

Plane crashes near Hollywood: Re-viving memories of the September 11 ter-ror strikes, a small plane crashed into athree-storey apartment building near Hol-lywood on Saturday.

US may deport 13,000 Muslims:More than 13,000 Muslim men who cameforward to register with the US govern-ment are illegal immigrants who may nowface deportation. That may produce thelargest wave of deportations of Muslimmen from the US since the Sept 11,2001, the New York Times reported. P15

CUP OF JOY: Belgium’s Justine Henin-Hardenne holds her trophy followingher Roland Garros French Tennis Openwomen singles’ final match againstKim Clijsters in Paris on Saturday. Henin-Hardenne won 6-0, 6-4.

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TELLY’S BRATPACKTELLY’S

BRATPACKMEN & WOMEN

Can privatisation plug India’s leaking bucket?By Sanghamitra Chakraborty

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

N ew Delhi: If you thought thehuge gap in demand and sup-ply — Indian cities need 4,000million litres more per day —makes water such a messyproblem, stop right there.

● In most Indian cities — saysthe W orld Bank — the avail-ability is less than three hourseveryday. Not be-cause they aredrying up or over-crow ded, but dueto waste and inef-ficiency.

● Political control,mismanagement and corrup-tion have ensured that civicbodies which provide water arebankrupt. They are monoliths,with excess employees with nourge or incentives to deliver.Most efficient systems have 2-3people per 1000 connections.In-dia has 10 plus, say experts.Delhi has 21.4 people per con-nection, says Sudhirendar

Sharma, Ecological Founda-tion, the cost: Rs 355/person.● W ater tariffs are absurdlyskew ed. The Urban Develop-ment Ministry says the cost ofdelivering water to a metrohome is Rs 15 per 1000 litre.Thecustomer pays Rs 1.50.● There is criminal waste —there is upto 55 per cent unac-counted for water in Indiancities,says the W orld Bank.

● Mismanage-ment, rather thanscarcity, rules.“Delhi is a leak-ing bucket,” saysJunaid K Ahmadof the W orld

Bank, w hich can be pluggedwith institutional reform s.● The national cost of fetchingw ater is 150 mn woman days,resulting in a national loss ofRs 10 mn every year,accordingto eco-scientist Vandana Shiva.Is privatisation the way out

of this messy maze? ‘‘Our focusin India is inefficiencies in op-erations,’’says Promod Mitroo,

GM, Veolia W ater,India. ‘‘Aftereach presentation on how toimprove Delhi’s water situa-tion, the CM’s response hasbeen: this is too good to betrue,’’he adds.Veolia, Suez anda handful of Indian companiesalong with agencies like theW orld Bank, say privatisationis the answ er.Politicians,bu-reaucrats, w ater utility em-ployees and activists say no.No matter which side of the

debate you are on reform, is theonly way out. The W orld Bank-backed form ula for Indiancities emphasise private-publicpartnerships: limited govern-ment control, entry of privatecompanies which can work atarm’s length with it and thepresence of a strong regulatorymechanism (like in telecom) asthe broad matrix.“The challenge is to redesign

w ater institutions in a way thatassigns the responsibility forpolicy form ulation, deliveryand regulation to separate enti-ties in order to create transpar-

ent checks and balance in thesystem,”says Ahmed.If activists are wary of

MNCs for profiteering, theMNCs are tired about the lackof political will. Yet, they lookat India as a very serious mar-ket. Says Srinivas Kishore,marketing head of Ondeo-De-gremont, a subsidiary of theFrench giant Suez: “Post-SARS,India has replaced Chi-na as our corporate focus.”W hile the world water marketis estimated at one trillion dol-lars,after the tumbling of techstocks,Fortune magazine hasrated water as the most prof-itable business for investors.Other water giants working

in Indian cities include VeoliaW ater (formerly Vivendi),Bechtel, involved in theTirupur project in Tamil Nadualong with Indian companieslike IL&FS,L&T and Thermax.Thames W ater, Biwater andAnglian W ater of UK are pitch-ing hard. Says Shiva: “In 2000,the business of safe water pro-

vision was estimated to reach$300 mn in India and Mexico.”W ith the success of pow er

privatisation, the Delhi govern-ment is encouraged to look at

w ater too.“A lot depends on theSonia Vihar treatment plant onhow acceptable the proposalwill be,”says a consultant.

Privatisation experts have suggested different models for local governments:

• Managementcontracts: The service providerawards a contract toa private companyfor a fixed period to manage the water utility. The investment is public,

the commercial risks either public or shared. • Lease contracts: The contract is offered on lease for

a finite period, the risks are shared.• Concession contracts: Using private investment

and taking greater risks than management contract.• Divestiture: The sale of utilities where everything

from ownership to risk belongs to private companies.

Water woes

SUNDAYSPECIAL

AFP

Pakistani and Indian players clash in an incident which saw India’s Baljit Singh Dhillon sent off by umpire Adam Kearn intheir match played in Sydney on Saturday. The match ended in a draw. Report on 19

Ill-tempered match with Pakistan, India enter finalAdvani guilty,allege karsevaks

TIMES NEWS NETWORK & AGENCIES

Lucknow/New Delhi: In a newtwist to the Babri Masjid case,five ofthe accused on Saturday alleged thatthey had pulled down the structure atAyodhya at the instigation of DeputyPrime Minister L K A dvani and oth-er senior BJP leaders.Vinod Vatsa, Santosh, R C Khatri,

Amar Nath Goyal and R N Das madethe allegation while speaking to re-porters outside the special CBI courthearing the case in Lucknow.They expressed resentment at ‘‘be-

ing discriminated against by thoseenjoying pow er’’and demanded thatall accused be treated equally.Denying the charge, A dvani’s

law yer Stayapal Jain said, ‘‘There isno evidence against A dvani... Thereare some people who might havebeen instigated by certain people tosay something against him.’’He said so far as the evidence be-

fore the Liberhans Commission ofinquiry is concerned, no one hasmentioned any direct evidenceagainst A dvani, HRD minister MurliManohar Joshi and BJP leader UmaBharti. Meanwhile,the Congress hasdemanded the resignation of A dvaniand M M Joshi. Congress partyspokesperson Anand Sharma said, ‘‘It is a well known fact that A dvani and the other ministers w ere the main conspirators duringthe demolition.’’Demanding a clarification fro m

the Prime Minister on the continua-tion of A dvani and others in the Cab-inet, the Congress said, ‘‘It will be amockery of democracy if the homeminister,prosecuted for an allegedcriminal act, should continue in thegovernment,’’ Sharma said. ‘‘Itw ould be better if they resign ontheir own or the Prime Minister callfor their resignation to uphold theprestige of the government.’’.

Tankers beware: Page 4

The haze mazeThe haze maze

Yes, if compared to last year.It was about 42 degrees lastyear, it is 45 plus this year

Winds from Arabian Sea areflowing across Rajasthan.Loose soil picked from thedesert state comes to Delhi,where a low pressure zone exists

For the next two days, or untilthe temperature comes downand the low pressure eases

Is the heat abnormal?

Why this haze?Asthmatics suffer as dust isnon- specific allergen. Fever,vomiting, dehydration goesup.20 % increase in AIIMSOPD. Drink more fluids,say doctors

It’s fallout?

How long will it last? Not till June-end, Met saysWhen will it rain?

Source: Met.department & AIIMS

Neeraj Paul

Delhi’s Jama Masjid is lost in a swirl of dust on Saturday.

5 10 20 35 80 100 125 200mm

PrecipitationForecast

11-16June Delhi

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CMYK

D E L H I 2 SU N DAY TIMES O F INDIA New Delhi, June 8, 2003

POOR ★★ AVERAGE ★★ ★★ GOOD ★★ ★★ ★★ VERY GOOD ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ OUTSTANDING ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★ ★★

C I N E M A O F T H E W E E K

PEOPLEPOWER

Question of the week●● W ill CAS benefit the

view er or add to his woes?

Advantage viewer? CAS spells hopeDeepak Harichandan

CAS rep-resentsa con-sumer-friendlytechnolo-gy that

will significantly reduce the monthlycable bill apart fro mbringing in trans-parency in the industry.Its adoptionis sure to introduce a new culture inw hich the televisionview er will have the final say.I am being flooded with requests to extendCAS to other citiesas well.

Ravi Shankar Prasad,I&B Minister

To chat on SMS send 'cchat' <your question> to 8888

Q. What is you role inKwahish?-ashooA: It’s a love storyand I play a Maharashtrian girl

called Lekha who falls in lovewith Amar. It’s about a relation-ship which spans for 5 years andhow it ends.Q. Do you have any more upcom-ing films?-deducted_golemA: Yes, lots of offers coming but what I am really excitedabout is Govind Menon’s nextfilm. And then an internationalproject Q. Actresses change their nameswhen they do their first moviesso that it brings them success. Isthat the reason why you changedyour name from Reema Lamba toMallika?-deepakA: Mallika means The Empressand I changed it because I liked it

the way the name sounds.Q. You are really bold in Kwahish,what is your background and is itresponsible for your boldness?-santoA: If being honest is called“bold” then it’s ok with me.Times are changing and it’s notthat girls these days don’t kiss.We had Raj Kapoor who madeSatyam Shivam Sundaram.Q. Tell us your experience working in your first film andabout those hot scenes in themovie, were you comfortablewith them?-freakA: I had a blast shooting.Regarding the hot scenes, theywere like any other scenes in themovie. I used “substitution”, Iwas thinking of Richard Gere.

“I feel sad for heroines who are not sexy”— MALLIKA SHERAWAT, Actress

• ‘Exposing is nothing new inBollywood’Model-turned actress Payal Rohat-gi feels it is nothing new for womento expose in Hindi movies, a trendthat has been long followed byZeenat Aman and Parveen Babi.• ‘Bhindranwale issue a politicalstrategy’

For complete chat log on tohttp://chat.indiatimes.com

Nineteen years after OperationBluestar and the death of militantleader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale,the Akal Takht has raked up a hor-net’s nest by according him a mar-tyr’s status. What will be its impact?Listen to an analysis in Hindi.

To listen, log on to http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com

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The day CAS gets imple-mented will be a goldenday in the history of Indi-an T V. It will benefiteveryone: for the con-sumer it means low er ca-

ble bills,less harassment. And for cable oper-ators and broadcasters it means an end to theblame game of under-declaration.Deepak Nagpal, Uttam Nagar

Initially,it will be a headache because thescenario is still confusing. But they won’t

complain once they get accustomed to thenew system.Shoma Majumdar,Kashmiri Gate

CAS will be very useful for various reasons.Parents can regulate TV fare for children.The pricing will also be fixed. Moreover it’san efficient instrument for getting feedback.Dr Harpal Sangwan, Inderpuri

There will be more channels and quality ofbroadcasting will improve.Sanjay Jana, Deoli

Definitely a people-friendly scheme,despitethe initial installation glitches.View ers willhave the freedom to opt for channels of their

choice. A part from the basic Rs 72 one will eventually pay less.Shivetta Bhatia, Malkaganj

Today, the view er pays around Rs 200 amonth, or a minimum Rs 2,000 a year.AfterCAS he will pay Rs 72 per month for 50 to 80channels.The set-top box (Rs 2500-7000) isjust a one-time expense.Sonia Verma, Kondli

The view er is sure to besaddled with inflated ca-ble bills after CAS rollsout on July 14. W eshould implement CASin a phased manner.

Col Onkar Chopra, Janakpuri

An increasingly desperate ministry is nowcoming out with new concessions and modifications. Unfortunately, even nownothing is clear to the common man.Vidyasagar,Yojana Vihar

The view er will benefit if the charges arereasonable and the set-top box is made available at a low er price.Rakesh Dudeja, Pitampura

W hat does the view er get? A restrictedchannel choice and his viewing privacy invaded.R K Malhotra, Alaknanda

Benefit70%

Woes30%

Khwahish (romance) ★★Cast: Mallika Sherawat, Himanshu MalikDirection: Govind MenonShowing at: Regal

Sorry, folks. The adulttag is a lie.All that hypeabout 17 smooches and

Bolly wood’s unbridled roll inthe hay is false,false,false.The kisses,if you choose tocount, add up to six-and-a-half (the rest are in flash-back) and these too are hard-ly hardboiled french ones.More like gentle brushesagainst the brow...But we are not complain-

ing about that. On the con-trary, K h wahish is actuallyquite a different experiencealtogether. The unconven-tional (read realistic) love af-fair between two Pune stu-dents is so sw eet and so fa-miliar,it makes you fondlysmile, time and again. Theboy is rich, the girl is ple-beian, the daughter of achicken farmer.And she de-lightfully rubs in this classdifference by addressing herboyfiend as ‘Sethji’ throughthe courtship and the maritalhighs and lows.It’s an uncluttered affair

with no sojourns in Switzer-land, no false notes. Andmost of the credit goes toyoung Mallika Sheraw at whoplays the nice,middle classMaharashtrian girl withoutbeing boring and stuffy.Hersexual mores (just kisses be-fore marriage,the rest onlyafter marriage), her familyrelationships, her opennessand her lightness of beinglend a waif-like quality to thefilm. Yes,Mallika is undoubt-edly the highpoint ofK h wahish.And not for skinshow alone.W e would like tocomplain against the direc-tor’s subterfuge.He takes adifferent story and gives it abanal twist. Go see for your-self and feel let down.

Nayee Padosan (comedy) ★★Cast: Mehak Chahal, RahulBhatt, Vikas KalantriDirection: B.H. TharunkumarShowing at: Shiela

D on’t even dream of theold Padosan.This one is

new and like all things nayee,it’s all about dumbing dow nand getting downright silly.

Four guys flip for a pretty

young thing who moves intothe neighbourhood and playgames to win her affections.One becomes her handyman,the other a music studentw ho wants to learn sa-re-ga-m a from her appa;the thirdsigns up as a wannabe boxingchamp with her athleticdadaji w hile the fourth is herchildhood buddy who alsohappens to be her parent’schoice for her.The entire film revolves

around the antics — if that’sw hat you can call them — ofthe three suitors who tryhard to become Beau No 1 forthis belle with the low-cutbell-bot. I counted my laughs.Just three. Try countingyours,but only if you must.

Johnny English (comedy) ★★ 1/2Cast: Rowan Atkinson, John MalkovichDirector: Peter HowittShowing at: PVR Priya

A fter Austin Pow er,here’sanother attempt to play

Bond. This time by Row anAtkinson (the closest he’s gotto Bond till date was in NeverSay Never Again, and eventhen the only action he saww as being thrown in a swim-ming pool by Sean Connery).Here,he comes up with his

own spy character: JohnnyEnglish, a blundering secretagent who does more damageto Her Majesty’s Secret Ser-vice than the Russians or Ko-reans could.His mission? Find the

Crown Jew els, w hich havebeen stolen by evil magnatePascal Sauvage (JohnMalkovich).Funny? Not really.Just a

likeable parody with a feww ell-worked comedy set-pieces.

Nikhat Kazmi

CMYK

D E L H I SU N DAY TIMES O F INDIA New Delhi, June 8, 2003 3

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Those who flew over the DU messIf the cut-off eludes you here,don’t lose heart. Foreign universities are willing and banks will send you there

By Pallavi MajumdarTIMES NEWS NETWORK

Smiti Aggarwalknows her 83.2 percent marks inClass 12 won’t gether into a good col-

lege in Delhi University.Soinstead of queuing up in DU,she secured admission in aBachelor of Business Man-agement course in Aus-tralia.The international expo-

sure,she feels,will improveher career prospects.Smiti is among the large

number of students whomthe cut-throat competitionand high cut-off lists sendoverseas in search of a de-gree.And a career.Here’s why and how you

can follow their footsteps:W hy abroad: One promi-

nent reason is that universi-ties abroad do not shut theirdoors on the basis of marksin Class 12 examinations.‘‘Percentages is not the onlycriterion for getting admis-sion to US universities,’’said Vijaya Khandavilli, ed-ucational advisor with theUnited States EducationalFoundation in India (USEFI).An overall assessment is

done of students,includingtheir achievements fro mClasses 9 to 11 and extra-cur-ricular activities,she said.A survey conducted by

her on the factors that pro-pel Indian students abroadin February 2002 indicatedthree major reasons.‘‘Better career prepara-

tion; greater course varietyand flexibility and interna-tional exposure were theprime reasons.The difficul-ty of securing admission ina good institution here wasthe next big reason,’’Khan-davilli said.‘‘It is so difficult to make

it to the cut-off here.Marksare the only criteria. US uni-versities,on the other hand,

consider extra-curricularactivities like essays and de-bates,’’ said Rahul Jindal,w ho has secured admissionin the economics and fi-nance course in the Univer-sity of Virginia in the US.‘‘Virginia is one of the

topmost universities. Thecourse will give me interna-tional exposure and an op-portunity to grow,’’ Jindaladded.He plans to land up with a

choice placement once backin India.

Siddharth Sundar has se-cured admission in electri-cal engineering in Massa-chusetts Institute of Tech-nology (MIT) in US and alsomanaged a scholarship. ‘‘Icould have tried for IIT,butto get the subject of one’schoice,one requires an inor-dinately high rank. More-over, there you have re-search opportunities even atthe undergraduate level,’’headded.MIT provides great place-

ment and the pay packets

that MNCs offer there areseveral times what an IITianw ould get there,he said.The increasing nu m-

bers: The number of Indianstudents going to the threemain destination — UnitedKingdom, United States ofAmerica and Australia —has been increasing everyyear.Take the case of the US.In

1993-94, the number of Indi-ans in US universities was34,796. The number hasnearly doubled over the last

eight years.In 2001-02, therew ere 66,836 students fro mIndia.The numbers have been

going up in the UK also.In2002, there were 6,400 under-graduate and post-graduatestudents studying in the UK.And their numbers aresw elling at the rate of 20 percent over five to six years,education counsellors said.The British High Commis-sion issued nearly 12,000 stu-dent visas between October2001 and September 2002.Australia has also been

gaining increasing accept-ance among students.‘‘There are over 15,000 Indi-an students in Australia.And 6,000 students are goingthere every year,’’said Hen-ry A S Ledlie,director,IDPEducation Australia Limit-ed.In 1994-95, there were

around 350 visas issued.Now about 6,000 students getvisas every year,of w hichabout 30 per cent are goingfor undergraduate courses.Popular courses: The

destination may be differ-ent, but the Indian students’most preferred courses re-main the same in all the con-tinents. Business manage-ment, inform ation technolo-gy and engineering are themore popular courses for In-dian students.Hotel management and

hospitality, medical andhealth services and massc o m munication follow suit.How ever,liberal arts are yetto pick up.Requirements: The min-

imum academic require-ments for entry to degreecourses in all the three coun-tries vary from institutionto institution and from onecourse to the other.One of the basic require-

ments is a good level of writ-ten and spoken English.W hile students need to

take the TOEFL exam forU S,they can take the Inter-

national English LanguageTesting Service (IELTS)exam for UK and Australia.American universities re-

quire the student to appearin a compulsory ScholasticA ptitude test (SAT). Peopleapplying for technical sub-jects may have to apply forS AT II. ‘‘But this varies indifferent universities,’’saidKhandavilli.H ow much does it cost?

As opposed to post-graduatestudy,there are no full schol-arships at the undergradu-ate level in these countries.About 65 British universi-ties offer over 300 bursaries(fee discounts) of amountsranging from 10 to 50 percent.In US and Australian uni-

versities too, there are nospecial schemes for Indianstudents.‘‘Yet there are quotas in

many Australian universi-ties for high achievers,’’Led-lie said.Similarly, some US uni-

versities may consider tu-ition waivers, said Khan-davilli. It is advisable if thestudent states this while ap-plying to the university,sheadds.If the prices worry you,

then the banks are there forto help.Education loans arebecoming popular as theygive a chance to pay backw hen the students startsearning.Education costs in the US

can go up to as much as $26,000 to $ 28,000 for a techni-cal degree.Costs vary according to

the location of the university.In British univer-sities,the cost comes to Rs12 lakh a year,including tu-ition fee and living costs.Australian education

comes 40 to 60 per centcheaper than US or UK, Led-lie claimed.‘‘A Bachelor level degree

costs an average of Rs 6.5lakh,’’he added.

Visa power: A guide on how to go and get it with easeBy Nistula Hebbar

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Months of prepara-tion and endlesscounselling ses-

sions are over.Exams taken,scores declared and admis-sions secured. All you needis that visa application to gothrough, to realise thedream of studying abroad.The five-minute interviewwith your visa officer is go-ing to make all the differ-ence.According to Vijaya

Khandavilli, educational ad-visor with the United StatesEducational Foundation inIndia (USEFI), keeping a few

things in mind will be help-ful to get a US visa.‘‘The visa officers have to

be convinced of the academ-ic bonafides of the student,’’she said. In other words,they have to be convincedyou are interested in thecourse of study and not justin reaching the US.This is verified by the

choice of university andhow the choice was made.Another thing to be kept inmind is the financial security.‘‘For the first year at least,

the student has to show liq-uid cash security to provehe/she can support herself

in the US,’’ added Khan-davilli. Only in the secondyear can other assets be con-sidered.Lastly,the visa officer has

to be convinced of your in-tentions to come back.

‘‘The US isfollowing thepolicy of ‘se-cure bordersand opendoors’. That is,students are al-w ays welcome, providedthey are genuine.For that,scrutiny is important,’’sheadded.

Financial paper work isalso a priority with Canada.

According to Ganga D Dan-dapani, general manager,O verseas Education,Canam Consultants,Canadais not interested in non-taxpaying sponsors.

‘‘A part from your docu-ments, youhave to showthree years oftax papers ofyour sponsor.This will clari-fy the origin of

your source of funds,’’sheadded.

Funds should be enoughto cover tuition fees,livingexpenses and even air fare toand fro.

Career Counsellor UshaAlbuquerque feels Aus-tralia, UK and Ireland havespecific things in mindw hile granting a visa.‘‘An Australian visa would

require funds to be show nfor the entire duration ofstudy in the country.Appar-ently,a few students got thevisa and disappeared intothe system,’’ said Albu-querque.For UK and Ireland, apart

from the funds,a new direc-tive requires the institutiongranting admission to en-sure the student is fluent inspoken English. ‘‘Thismeans that you should apply

for a visa if your TOEFLscores are a minimum of 250or IELTS should be 5.5 andabove,’’she added.‘‘Both Australia and the

UK like students from India,but only genuine ones whocome back,’’pointed out Al-buquerque.Australia has acomputerised system fortracking students and, insome cases, requires stu-dents to come back after thecourse to apply for a workpermit first.So when you go for that

visa interview, rememberthese are the five minutesthat can change the courseof your career.

CAPITALSTORY

Maid held for GKwoman’s murder

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

N ew Delhi: A domestic helphas been arrested for them urder of an old woman inGreater Kailash area. Rob-bery was said to be the mo-tive behind the murder.The police arrested Gauri

Jena (21) on Saturday and re-covered part of the jew ellerythat Jena had allegedlystolen after murdering her60-year-old employer MeenaGupta on May 31.Deputy commissioner of

police (south), Vivek Gogia,said: ‘‘Meena had broughtthe jew ellery home with theintention of distributing itbetween her two marrieddaughters. Gauri, w ho wasabsconding since the murder,w as the prime suspect.’’On May 31, an elderly

w oman was found stabbed todeath in her Greater Kailash-II residence by her husband,Harprakash Gupta, w ho re-turned home from a partylate in the night. The bodybore two stab wounds includ-ing one on the neck. Meenaw as a housewife whileHarprakash is a consultantin a private firm.Gogia said: ‘‘The deceased

had brought home a lot ofjew ellery a few days beforethe murder and had allegedlyshown it to Gauri. Thesevaluables were found miss-ing along with Gauri and herbelongings.’’

The two almirahs,w herethe jew ellery was kept, w erefound open. The police recov-ered two kitchen knives anda wooden plank stained withblood from the spot. A toolused for cutting grass wasalso found in the house.Enquiries revealed that

Gauri was seen leaving thehouse at about 9.45 pm with abag in an autorickshaw.The DCP said search teams

w ere sent to her native placein Balasore, Orissa, and ather sister’s place in Midna-pore,W est Bengal. Tw o per-sons,w ho were known to beclose to Gauri, w ere also de-tained for questioning.According to the police

Gauri had been employedonly four months before them urder and the employershad not got her antecedentsverified.On Saturday, the police

learnt of a woman whose de-scription matched that ofGauri residing in a Gobind-puri slum cluster.A searchparty was sent and Gauriw as apprehended. The policerecovered a purse belongingto the deceased.The DCP said Gauri con-

fessed to having committedthe murder for cash and jew -ellery.Later,she had report-edly gone to her sister’s placein W est Bengal, but cameback to Delhi after finding apolice party there.

Noida police nab car thievesTIMES NEWS NETWORK

Noida: The Noida police ar-rested four persons and re-covered eight stolen carsfrom them on Friday.The accused were,alleged-

ly,using the cars for smug-gling country liquor from Ra-jasthan to Uttar Pradesh. Themen provided the police withinform ation about four morecars they had earlier stolenand sold.According to Gautam

Budh Nagar police chief,Ra-jiv Krishna, a team of specialoperation group of the dis-trict police and the Sector 24police station got a tip offthat car thieves,in two cars,

w ere heading from Ghazi-abad to Delhi via Gijhor inNoida.About 8.30 pm on Friday,

car numbers DAJ 1450 andRJC 795 were stopped by thepolice for checking.‘‘Subse-quently,the four men travel-ling in them were arrested.They led us to six more stolencars.They confessed to usingstolen cars to smuggle coun-try liquor,from Bharatpur,inRajasthan, into western Ut-tar Pradesh,’’said Krishna.The details of the four cars

stolen earlier are being in-vestigated. The extent of theillicit liquor racket is also be-ing probed, the police said.

Handicraft trader’shouse raidedN ew Delhi: A handicrafttrader’s house in Jangpuraw as raided by the Rajasthanpolice on Saturday. He wasquestioned about his allegeddeals in antiques stolen fro mRajasthan.The Jangpura police was

informed before the raid wasconducted. Antique idols ofbrass and some ivory articlesw ere reportedly found in hishouse.TNN

AbroadAhoy!Popular study destinations: UK, USA, Australia,New Zealand, Canada66,836 Indian students enrolledin various courses in the US in2001-2003Approx. 12,000 studentvisas were issued by theBritish High Commissionin India between October2001 and September20026,000 students go to Australia for

studies every year. Of these, 25%to 30% are undergraduatesThere are about 4,000 Indian students in Germany, 3,000 Indian students in New Zealand

and 1,200 Indian students in FranceSought after courses: Engineering, Architecture,Business and Management,Information Technology,Biotechnology, Medicine

and Health Services,Hospitality, Mass Comm

Swati Chakrabarti

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

N ew Delhi: The crimebranch of Delhi policeclaimed to have arrested aproclaimed offender involvedin cases of cheating,auto-lift-ing and forgery.W ith his ar-rest, the police said they hadsolved 15 cases of auto-lift-ing,cheating and forgery.DCP (crime), Dependra

Pathak, said: ‘‘JoginderSingh, w ho runs an auto fi-nance company in Janakpuriarea of w est Delhi, w as ar-rested on Friday evening.Singh had been engaged instealing cars since 1990 andused to dispose them off us-ing his business as a garb.’’He had been booked once,butmanaged to evade arrest de-spite the court declaring himan absconder,the DCP added.The crime branch received

an inform ation that the ow n-er of a finance company

called ‘J P W orld W ide’ locat-ed at Suneja Tow er-II in Dis-trict Centre,Janakpuri, w asa doubtful charcter.Follow -ing investigations, he wasfound to be involved in onecase of Greater Kailash in1994. Subsequently,on perus-al of court records anddossiers,the police conclud-ed that he was the sameJoginder Singh who was aproclaimed offender.

On interrogation, the ac-cused confessed hisreal identity anddisclosed that hehad once been anactive member of agang of auto lifterswith Uday ChandSharma of Farid-abad and Vinod Se-hgal of Ambala,Haryana as thekingpins.

Singh told police

he had been evading the po-lice by frequently changingaddresses.In most cases,hiswife gave the surety which heused to jump later and avoid-ed trials.The DCP said Singh used

to forge documents of stolenvehicles for its subsequentsale.Interestingly, he once ap-

proached an auto financecompany for loans on the ba-sis of forged documents.

By Saurabh SinhaTIMES NEWS NETWORK

N ew Delhi: Satellites will sooncome to the rescue of thirstyDelhiites.The Delhi Jal Board(DJB) has installed global posi-tioning systems (GPS) on someprivate tankers hired by it tomonitor their movement. Theaim: Ensuring that tankers ac-tually reach those in distress.Bharat Electronics Limited

(BEL), a public sector undertak-ing,has installed the GPS free ofcost on seven tankers,said DJBmember (finance) Rajiv Lal.Currently BES is monitoringthe movement of tankers andpassing on the inform ation toDJB.But once all tankers havethe GPS chips,a monitoring sta-tion will be set inside DJB head-quarters,said Lal.

‘‘We have asked BEL to give usprecise inform ation like theroutes tankers have follow ed tosee if they strayed off their ar-

eas assigned,’’said DJB chief PK Tripathi. BEL has also beenasked to see if the tankers areidling; going to ice factories to

sell water and, if possible,givehouse-wise details of w herethey have gone.Upbeat over the system, DJB

member (finance) Rajiv Lal saidthere are plans to install themon all tankers at the earliest.‘‘The chips that beam thetanker’s movement live come forRs 15,000 a piece.The ones thatkeep storing inform ation andbeam the details once a daycome for Rs 4,000,’’ said Tri-pathi.At present, the DJB owns 590

tankers and hires another 408.In several parts of the city,tankers are either the main orthe sole source of w ater supply.Residents allege that the tankerdrivers often sell water else-w here and don’t reach the com-plainant’s place.

CMYK

D E L H I4 SU N DAY TIMES O F INDIA New Delhi, June 8, 2003

P R AYER MEETING

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Tankers beware, big brother’s here

Scoring big with Radio Mirchi’s 9-8-3T

here is a great syner-gy between RadioMirchi and Cotton

County: both cater to thepopular segment. For Cot-ton County — the latestw orld class offering fro mthe house of Monte Carlo —it has been a very successfulassociation with RadioMirchi as both brands havecaptured the imagination ofmasses as well as the class-es.‘‘Just like Radio Mirchi,Cotton County garmentshave been able to break theclutter and get establishedin the Delhi market,’’saysSachin Sahni, brand man-

ager of Cotton County,oneof the sponsors of the RadioMirchi 9-8-3 Kismat Khol Decontest.For those who came in

late,the contest is anchoredaround the numbers 9, 8 and 3 (the Radio Mirchi frequency).The numbers 9, 8, 3 in

your life are the key to winthousands of prizes,w orthlakhs of rupees,in the Ra-dio Mirchi 983 Kismat KholDe contest.The category of the day

appears every day in theTimes of India and Navb-harat Times, and is an-

nounced on Radio Mirchi.If you have 9, 8, 3 or any

two of these numbers inany sequence in the catego-ry of the day,all you need todo is call Radio Mirchi at51553333, complete a simpleslogan — Radio Mirchi ishot because... and claim ex-citing prizes.You can also SMS Mirchi

to 8888 to participate in theRadio Mirchi 983 KismatKhol De contest. The con-test will run on RadioMirchi 98.3 FM till June 9,between 7 am and 8 pmeveryday.The Radio Mirchi983 Kismat Khol De contest

is being presented by CatchClear.Every hour,winners will

be picked and their nameswill be announced on air onRadio Mirchi 98.3 FM. Atthe end of the day,one luckywinner walks aw ay with agrand prize.Listeners canalso bag several weeklybumper prizes. The megabumper prize at the end ofthe contest is an air ticket toEurope from Amadeuscourtesy Swiss Internation-al. And the jackpot — adream house worth Rs 15lakhs from the AnsalsGroup.

(From left) Rupali Arora and her family won the weekly bumper prize of a Whirlpool air conditioner on Radio Mirchi 9-8-3Kismat Khol De contest and Neeti Verma and a friend won the weekly bumper prize — a True Sound DVD entertainment system DV-55 from LG Electronics.

BANGKOK/TOKYO: Thai Air 0010 (TG-316),A-I 0050 (IC-855) FRANKFURT: Lufthansa 0305 (LH-761) AMSTERDAM:KLM 0745 (KL-476) LONDON: British Air 0210 (BA-142) PARIS: Air France 0040 (AF-147),A-I 0735 (AI-141) SINGAPORE: Sin’pore Airlines 2315 (SQ-407),I-A 0050 (IC-855) HONG KONG/OSAKA:A-I 2320 (AI-318) ROME/GENEVA:A-I 0350 (AI-171)

AHMEDABAD:0120 (AI 610) MUMBAI: 0615 (AI140),0700 (AI 170), 1855 (AI 301), 2145 (AI 319)

WEATHERRain or thundershowers likely at many places in ArunachalPradesh, Assam and Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur, Mi-zoram - Tripura, sub-Himalayan WB and Sikkim and Lak-shadweep; at a few places in Andaman and Nicobar Is-

lands, Gangetic WB, Jharkhand, Bihar and Kerala and at isolated placesin Orissa, east UP, Uttaranchal, HP, J&K, Konkan and Goa, coastal AP, TNand coastal Karnataka. Mainly dry weather will prevail over the rest ofthe country.

Max Min

INDIA

Guwahati 31 23 Dehradun 37 25 Hyd’bad 41 29 Indore 39 25 Jaipur 43 31 Lucknow 37 25 Patna 35 24 Rajkot 39 27 Shimla 29 21 Srinagar 31 13

FLIGHTS OUTOF DELHI

Mumbai: I-A 0700,0800, 0900, 1200, 1300,1700, 1800, 1900, 2000,2300 Jet Air 0650,0800, 0935, 1400, 1725,1935, 2030, 2200,Sahara 1700, 0935,1520, 1800, 2025KOLKATA: I-A 0700,1600★★ ,1700,1945Jet Air 0600, 1720,Sahara 0620,1915CHENNAI: I-A0640,0955★★★1645,1900 Jet Air0645,1900BANGALORE:I-A 0650, 1645, 1900Jet Air 0635,1715,Sahara 0725, 1745HY’BAD:I-A 0630, 1745GOA: I-A 1200,Sahara 1200 KULU: Jagson 0630,0650, 1215 ★AHMEDABAD:I-A 0600,1700★★ 1845,Jet Air 0610 GUWAHATI—BAGDOGRA:I-A 0555★★ , 1010•★ Jet Air 1010

NATIONAL

INTERNATIONAL

AIR INDIA

Ph: I-A:140,142. ★ Mon, Wed,Fri, ★★ Tue, Thu, Sat, ★★★Mon-Fri, Sun, Jet Air: (City)6853700, (Airport) 25665404Sahara: (City) 2335901-9,(Airport) 25675234/875, (Tele-Checkin) 25662600. • Mon, Fri.

A-I: (City)23736446 /47/48(Air.)25652050, British Air:(Air.) 25652908, Lufthansa:23323310, Singapore Airlines23356286, Thai Air: 3323638

TRAIN RESERVATIONS

No. of passengers dealt on 06.06.2003 (Delhi Area): 59,064 (N. Rly. Area)2,45,920. It does not necessarily mean that reservation is available on allsubsequent dates. For further information regarding reservation: Ph: 131 forcomputerised PNR, for status enquiry contact 1330, 1335, 1345.

(Information supplied by Indian Railways)

9arliest date on which berth / seats were available at 2004 hrs. on07.06.2003 in important trains leaving various Delhi stations.

Train No. Train / Exp / Mail 1 ac 2 ac Ac 3t SlNORTH4033 Jammu Mail 11.06 24.06 28.06 24.064645 Shalimar Exp — 08.07 03.07 23.062403 Jammu Exp 19.06 28.06 29.06 30.06EAST2302 Kolkata Rajdhani 11.06 13 .06 13.06 —2304 Poorva Exp 12.06 18.06 22.06 26.062382 Poorva Exp 13.06 17.06 23.05 30.062312 Kalka Mail N.A. 24.06 09.07 01.072392 Magadh Exp N.A. 22.06 22.06 17.062402 Shramjeevi Exp - 11.06 17.06 17.062418 Prayag Raj Exp 11.06 14.06 11.06 16.064056 Brahmputra Mail — N.A. 14.07 13.075622 North East Exp — 28.06 07.06 09.072554 Vaishali Exp 09.06 23.06 22.06 22.062816 Puri Exp — 25.06 25.06 19.062802 Purshottam Exp — 29.06 24.06 19.068476 Neelanchal Exp — 29.06 27.06 20.064230 Lucknow Mail 13.06 16.06 17.06 22.06WEST2904 Golden Temple Mail 12.06 21.06 24.06 26.062926 Paschim Exp 14.06 25.06 26.06 30.062952 Mumbai Rajdhani 21.06 24.06 23.06 —2954 AG Kranti Rajdhani 18.06 19.06 23.06 —2474 Sarvodaya Exp — 03.07 26.06 19.061078 Jhelum Exp — 07.07 02.07 03.072916 Ashram Exp 18.06 27.06 26.06 18.06SOUTH2616 G T Exp 14.06 22.06 24.06 17.062622 Tamil Nadu Exp 16.06 19.06 26.06 17.062432 Trivandrum Raj 24.06 08.07 06.07 —2626 Kerala Exp — 25.06 24.06 19.062618 Mangala Exp — 30.06 30.06 19.062628 Karnataka Exp — 30.06 28.06 17.062724 A P Exp 19.06 26.06 30.06 22.062430 Banglore Rajdhani 30.06 01.07 07.07 —7022 Dakshin Express — 23.06 — 16.06

Max MinDelhi 43 35 Mumbai 35 29 Chennai 42 29 Kolkata 36 27 B’lore 34 23 Ahm’bad 43 29 T’puram 34 25 Bhopal 41 28 B’eshwar 36 29 Pune 35 25

WORLDMax Min

Amsterdam 22 11 Bahrain 38 32 Bangkok 35 26 Beijing 36 16 Chicago 26 08 Geneva 31 18 Hong Kong 32 27 London 22 12 Los Angeles 20 17 Moscow 18 11

Mohammed Ilyas

GPS systems will track the movement of water tankers soon.

New property tax system on the anvilTIMES NEWS NETWORK

N ew Delhi: President A P JAbdul Kalam on Friday gavehis assent to the Delhi Mu-nicipal Corporation Amend-ment Bill 2003, thus, bringingthe introduction of the pro-posed unit area system ofproperty tax a step closer.The proposed system, like-

ly to bring about transparen-cy and equality among prop-erty tax payers, will now bediscussed in a municipalevaluation committee com-

prising councillors and legis-lators. The committee is yetto be constituted.‘‘The final decision on

rates and the model of unitarea system will be taken bythe Standing Committee,’’said Ram Babu Sharma,leader of the House and Com-mittee chairman.MCD commissioner,

Rakesh Mehta, said the newsystem will make propertytax assessment logical andput an end to ‘‘inspector raj.’’He said the civic agency had

tied up with the postal de-partment for collecting infor-mation about the coveredarea in each property. De-spite the presidential nod,the MCD may need a fewmonths to implement thenew property tax system.The amendments ap-

proved by the President weresent to the ministry of homeaffairs after the Delhi gov-ernment accepted the reportof the K Dharamrajan com-mittee in March. An official said the com-

mittee proposed three taxmodels, each with differentbase rate and category fac-tors. It recommended a taxrate ranging from 6 per centto 20 per cent. Different mod-els with variable tax rateswould yield a different annu-al tax collection.Officials said the commit-

tee based its calculation onassumptions that the built-uparea of city’s residentialproperties was 300 sq km andthat of commercial proper-ties was about 20 sq km.

Police nab wanted criminal

Supervise powerand water, Dikshittells colleagues

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

N ew Delhi: Chief ministerSheila Dikshit has asked theDelhi state ministers andMLAs to personally super-vise the power and water sit-uation in their areas. Shesaid this while inaugurating36 new tubewells in the Pallaarea of the Yamuna river bedon Saturday morning. Builtat a cost of Rs 9.75 crore,these tubewells will yield 10million gallons a day (MGD)to about five lakh people inrural areas in north andnorthwest Delhi.Delhi Jal Board (DJB)

member (water) G C Nand-wani said: ‘‘At present, 66tubewells are functional inPalla. In the next threemonths, the number will goup to 110.’’

CMYK

I N D I A SU N DAY TIMES O F INDIA New Delhi, June 8, 2003 5

State of the Congress: Getting ready for a comeback?The assembly polls in Congress-ruled states hold the key to the party’s fortunes.Sunday Times takes stock of the performance of Congress governments in these states

Rajasthan: The Congress governmentunder Ashok Gehlot took charge fourand a half years ago after securing a twothird majority. At the Congress chiefministers’ conclave in Srinagar lastmonth, he was described by Sonia Gand-hi as the chief minister number one.TheCongress president may have given theCM an A plus score but what does theground report show?

His key performance areas:● Pow er sector reform s,a role model

for other states and hailed even by theBJP-led NDA government. W ithout in-volving private player the governmenttook up the challenge of a 1000 MW pow -er plant.

● Universalising primary education,bringing 24 lakh children under the lit-eracy fold and introducing mid-day mealscheme in schools.

● Rated as the country’s best state inconnecting rural areas with roads underthe Prime Minister Gramin Sarak Yo-jana.

● Managed one of the worst droughtwith limited resources,converting reliefw ork into development.

But Gulab Chand Kataria, leader ofOpposition in the Rajasthan Vidhan Sab-ha contends: The so-called pow er sectorreforms only added to the miseries of thepeople who have to foot a heavier pow erbill. Poor farmers have no means to irri-gate their land. Because of the poor in-vestments in the industrial sector em-ployment generation has stagnated.Even after low ering the retirement ageto 58 years things aren’t better on the jobfront. There’s rampant corruption. Thepoor are getting poorer.The governmenthas borrow ed heavily (loans worth Rs28,000 crores) pushing the state intoa debt trap.’’

M a d hya Pradesh: Chief minister

Digvijay Singh lists improvement in so-cial sector,enforcement of fiscal disci-pline and people empow erment throughdecentralisation as the three majorachievements of his government, claim-ing that after universalising access to el-ementary education, he is readying forsecondary education.

He claims literacy went up by 44per cent in 1991 to 64 per cent. Nearly 7 lakh hectares of land hasbeen allotted to over 3.44 lakh landlessdalit families and communities have agreater say in the process of develop-ment and decision-making.Micro economic activities have been

promoted on a large scale through near-ly two lakh Self-Help Groups.There’sbeen a reduction of revenue deficit fro m3.16 per cent in 98-99 to 1.69 per cent in2002-2003.

According to Uma Bharati there arecountless non-performance areas of theDigvijay Singh government. ‘‘State isreeling under a severe pow er crisis situ-ation, there is no industry,no roads and

agriculture has slipped from the fourthposition in 1991 to the 13th rank by 2001and there is widespread unemployment.There are 76 lakh registered unemployedyouths in the state,’’says Uma.Singh counters: ‘‘Our priority was

building up a solid social infrastructure,because of w hich economic infrastruc-ture received less attention. Inadequaterainfall and the Centre’s raw dealing inrespect of coal supply also compoundedthe problem. W e are doing our bestto tide over the pow er crisis. O nroads, more than Rs 500 crore hasbeen spent.’’

Delhi: The Sheila Dikshit governmenthas a fair share of plus and minuses.W hile there has been progress in certainsectors making life for the average Del-hiite somew hat better there are many ar-eas where the government has trulylagged behind.

The Plus factor: Pow er distributionw as privatised in July,2002 after fouryears of groundw ork. Tw o private com-panies with experience of pow er sector

in Mumbai, Tata Pow er and BSES tookover from the inefficient Delhi VidyutBoard. The pow er cuts are comparative-ly less this summer.

The entire public transport — buses,autos and taxis were converted into eco-friendly CNG mode allowing Delhiites tobreathe easy.Delhi also got its metro railfrom Shahdara to Tis Hazari.Eighteen new flyovers have facilitated

smooth movement of traffic in a citywith the highest number of vehicles (39lakh) in the country.Fourteen more areunder construction and 11 are in thepipeline.Bhagidari — people-government part-

nership mooted by the state governmentthree years ago,has caught up.The coali-tion has given a platform where resi-dents can push the government to solvetheir local problems.The Minuses: Though pow er distribu-

tion has been privatised, resident inmany locality still reel under prolongedpow er cuts.The government says theyhave arranged for surplus pow er fro mother states, but shortages continue.W ork on pow er infrastructure will betested during hot and humid July,w henthe government-to-private switchovercompletes a year.W ater crisis continue to plague the

city.There’s a yawning gap of over 200million gallon per day between demandand supply.Relocation of slums remainsa contentious issue with the state gov-ernment yet to decide on their fate.About 40 lakh Delhiites live in slums.Corruption is also one of the issues

threatening the Congress’s electoralprospects.As many as six municipal cor-poration’s councillors are facing corrup-tion charges.

— By Prakash Bhandari,Suchandana Gupta and

Shubhajit Roy

Formula for catchingvotes, winning polls

By Sakina Yusuf KhanTIMES NEWS NETWORK

N ew Delhi: The Congress has nev-er been out of pow er this long.Inthe past four years,the party couldhardly reconcile itself to playingan effective Opposition, but as theelections draw near, it seems tohave perked up and is working outan effective political strategy to re-capture pow er.‘‘We are gearing upfor the 2004 polls.The election ma-chinery has been galvanised,’’sayssenior Congressman ManishankarAiyar.According to CWC memberSalman Khurshid, various commit-tees are at work on documentsw hich will all go into devising an ef-fective election strategy.The eco-nomic cell has been beefed up withthe inclusion of Arjun Sengupta. Adocument on the 50 failures of theN DA government and chargesheetson non-Congress state govern-ments have been prepared.Election strategy committee:

A ten-member Election StrategyCommittee headed by Dr Manmo-han Singh is busy working out win-ning stratagems.Membership drive: An aggres-

sive membership drive is on. Theparty hopes to enrol over a crore ac-tive members and 3.5 crore primarymembers.Even through Internet.Pre-emptive strike: W ith

drought set to provide fodder to the

political parties to score pointsahead of the elections,Sonia madea pre-emptive strike with her letterto the PM demanding timely steps.This deft political move,analystssay,could pay electoral dividends.The party plans to fight the anti-in-cumbency by attacking the BJP-ledN DA government’s discriminatoryattitude tow ards Congress statesparticularly on the drought issue.Good governance Vs misrule:

The Congress also plans to contrastthe good governance of Congress-ruled states with the BJP’s misrule.According to Ahmed Patel, the BJPw as in pow er in Delhi for five years.They changed three chief minis-ters.The party is now in pow er atthe Centre but their state leader-ship has failed to persuade them tosolve the problems of the Delhiites.Secular alternative: The par-

ty’s flip flop on secularism didn’tw ork in Gujarat. So will it soft Hin-dutva yet again? Aiyar says: ‘‘Wem ust take a clear unambiguous sec-ular line and provide the electoratea secular alternative.’’The coalition question: Is an

electoral tie-up with the SP on theanvil? Congressmen say coalitionsare part of the Congress culturebut the decision of w hom to alignwith will be left to party’s stateunits.As of now,nothing is ruledout or ruled in, they say.

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SONIA’S GEMS: Their poll vaults and faultsRAJASTHAN

USPPower sectorreforms, uni-versalisingprimary edu-cation, man-

aged one of the worst droughtsBJP’s WEAPONPower sector reforms led to heavy bills which poor farm-ers can ill-afford.Rampant corruption. Heavyborrowing will land state in a debt trap.

MADHYA PRADESH USPLiteracy hasgone up 44percent andcaught upwith national

average of 64 percent. Landwas allotted to over 3.44 lakhdalit familiesBJP’s WEAPONPower crisis, no industry. Agri-culture has slipped from thefourth position to the 13th, un-employment.

DELHIUSPPower distri-bution wasprivatised.Public transport

converted into CNG mode.Metro became operational.18 new flyovers.BJP’s WEAPONWater crisis continues,relocation of slums,corruption threaten Congelectoral prospects.

Ashok Gehlot Digvijay Singh Sheila Dikshit

A s the deadline for CAS drawsnear,view ers in the the four

metros are realising that soon theset-top box will be a necessity likethe remote.How ever,not many arewilling to buy one yet, as theCNBC-NFO poll conducted lastw eek in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkataand Chennai shows.Mumbaikarsexpect the cable operators to pro-vide the box free of cost.According to estimates there are

400 lakh cable view ers in India, 64lakhs in the four metros.On July14 when CAS becomes operational,Delhi alone will require six to eightlakh boxes.Since there are no Indian manu-

facturer yet, cable operators are de-pending solely on imports.Aroundsix manufacturers are in the run-ning.Humax Digital and HyundaiDigital from South Korea, Shezhen

Electronics Coship,Shanghai Thakral fro mChina and Nagravisionfrom Switzerland, are themajor players.Most are well-know n

electronic goods manufac-turers. For example,Shanghai-Thakral is a Sin-gapore-based companypromoted by NRI KartarSingh Thakral. Theirbrand ‘Orion’is popular inEurope. Says Kamal

Sachar, head India operations ofthe Thakral Group,‘‘We have tiedup with a Chinese manufacturerand set up a unit in Shanghai forthe boxes.W e are supplying to SitiCable and talking with others forsupplies.’’Siti Cable is also buying fro m

Hyundai Digital. Indusind Visionis sourcing the boxes from Nagrav-ision. Similarly, Hathaw ay Cablehas placed orders with Humax Dig-ital. Explains Ravi Gupta, a Delhi-based distributor of Hathaw ay Ca-bles,‘‘There is a demand for six toseven lakh boxes in the first sixmonths.Humax will provide twolakh boxes on July 14. More ship-ment will come every 15 days.’’But that may not be enough, feel

experts.According to a broadcast-er,set top boxes for only two percent of the 64 lakh subscribershave been ordered by the opera-tors.Experts say,the box cost around

$50 or Rs 2,400. W ith import dutyand transport cost, the total will bearound Rs 2,700. The selling pricewill be between Rs 2,900 to Rs 3,500.‘‘The margins are very low and thelocal players have nothing much togain,’’says Atul Gupta of GanpatiElectronics who shelved plans ofsupplying boxes because of the lowprofit margins.

— Sujata Dutta Sachdeva

CMYK

I N D I A6 SU N DAY TIMES O F INDIA New Delhi, June 8, 2003

Just how do you cash in on CAS?The man — and woman — hours spent over how the Conditional Access System will change our lives have been too many.

The time has now come to see how each stakeholder in the game — broadcasters,cable guys and most important,the view er — will convert it into equity.Sunday Times brings you the real picture

N othing has raised som uch dust in the broad-

casting industry as the im-plementation of the Condi-tional Access System or CAS,but the truth remains thatconsumers are staring atgood times ahead.Imagine this: * You are sit-

ting cozily in the bedroomand managing your bank ac-count with that proverbial id-iot box. How about watchingthat Hrithik Roshan block-buster that released thisw eekend? And that too whilehaving dinner. Dazed, areyou? W ell, these are justsome of the benefits of thatm uch-ridiculed CAS set-topbox (STB) that will be an in-dispensable part of yourhousehold, come July 14.“The STB empow ers a con-

sumer in many ways.Initial-ly,he can control the monthlycable bill and a year fro mnow,he will have the option

of value-added services likevideo on demand, stockdownloads and even shop-ping and booking your tick-ets from home,” says AthatA bbas,director of CatvisionProducts Ltd.Under the CAS regime,

consumers can choose thechannels and minimise thestrain on their pockets.“The consumer can get the

entire bouquet for Rs 72 plustaxes.Though the rates forindividual pay channels areyet to be fixed, they are ex-pected to be around Rs 25 apiece for entertainmentchannels and Rs 40 a piece form ovie channels,” saysSushil, a cable operator.Thisw ould bring down the effec-tive monthly fee to as low asRs 150-170 per household.Vikram Vohra, a resident

of Maharani Bagh, w hichhas already implemented theCAS system in a phased man-

ner, says: “I am finding itmore value-packed than anormal connection. At least,now I get and pay for onlythose channels I want to see.”As for consumers who

have been fretting about thehigh prices of STBs,the goodnews is that Zee Network isalready offering digital STBsat Rs 2,750 excluding localtaxes.IndusInd Media (INCa-bleNet) has also announcedits introductory schemestarting June 15, 2003, ofmaking available digitalSTBs to customers at a re-fundable deposit of Rs 999plus a nominal daily rent ofRe 1. Just one word of advise:This introductory offer isvalid only upto the thirdw eek of July,to pass on thebenefits of the custom dutyconcessions announced by the government to customers.

— Byas Anand

Will the consumer be king?Hrithik on demand, how’s that!

T he cablew alas have been theproverbial fall guys in the bat-

tle for eyeballs.Being the front-enddealer with the consumer,they facethe flak for television blackouts,and are also at the receiving endfrom broadcasters.But all that willbe history once the CAS regime isimplemented.W ith the idiot box getting a full

time companion in the form of a settop box, the consumer will nowhave more-or-less a direct connec-tion with the broadcasters and mul-ti-system operators (MSO) like Siti-cable and INCableNet.The local cable guy might end up

losing a bit in the initial phase as hewill now have to invest in softwareas well as stocking set top boxes.But then the benefits are manifold.At the click of a mouse,the cable

operator can lock the signals of anypay channel that the house with the set top box is re-ceiving.He can block one or all the pay channels ina household without causing any disruption to theneighbour’s signals.He can also use the set top boxes to capture the

television viewing habits of subscribers.

MSOs gain from CAS they willget control over India’s 42 millioncable homes.But there’s no doubt-ing the fact that some of the localcable operators would fall by thew ayside.And as industry insiderssay: “May the fittest survive.”“The operators would now be

forced to professionalise their oper-ations.They may lose out on someunder-the-table income from multi-ple TV households but their rev-enue stream will remain intact.The cable operators will still get

money from the Free-To-Air chan-nels in addition to the 50 per centcommission from pay channels,”says a senior official from INCa-bleNet. No wonder that a majorityof the cable operators,with the ex-ception of ZEE Telefilms’ Siticable,are supporting the CAS.Siticable chief Jaw ahar Goel had

stated that the over 2,000 court cases currentlypending between operators and pay channel broad-casters in various courts need to be settled first be-fore implementing CAS.But INCableNet officialsendorsed clearance of CAS a good move. “It is go-ing to discipline the system,”he said.— B A

Is it advantage Cable Guy, then?Clean business, dream business

The Broadcaster’s storyShort term pains, long term gains

T he confusion over CASand its impact is highest

among broadcasters. W hilethe Indian broadcasters likeTV Today, Zee, Sahara,N D T V, Sun, Doordarshanand Eenadu have extendedsupport for a smooth launchof CAS the for-eign broadcast-ers like Star,Sony,Discovery,E S P N - S t a rSports are lob-bying to deferthe launch.Reason: Foreign broadcast-

ers have more pay channels.O ver 70 per cent of the adspend is on pay channels inDelhi, Mumbai, Kolkata andChennai. They fear a revenueshift from their business.“In the short term, the

broadcasters with more paychannels will probably losereach and revenue. But iftheir content is worth watch-ing,subscribers won’t mind

paying extra and that meansgreater ad revenue,” says anIndian broadcaster.Today, a lot of channels

survive on view ership lies.Since most channels come aspart of a bouquet, the weakerchannels get the ad support

thanks to thestronger ones.But with CAS inplace, ad agen-cies will be ableto monitor adflows would

change accordingly.“It will bring in a market

mechanism,” the broadcast-er adds. The broadcaster,says Athar A bbas of Catvi-sion, also gets to fix the paychannel cost per subscriber.It will mean more revenue inthe long run as the supplychain gets transparent.Assuming that, the set top

box penetration touches 50per cent of metro homes,itmeans a huge jump in pay

revenues.Estimates,in fact,reveal that if Star alone gets50 per cent declaration inmetros post CAS, it wouldadd over Rs 100 crore to itsrevenue.“Finally it’s a ques-tion of short-term pain andlong-term gain,”adds A bbas.The broadcasters can also

access the subscriber man-agement system through apassw ord. So they can verifythe subscriber numbers,leaving little room for under-declaration. This will ad-dress a long-standing com-plaint of broadcasters thatcable operators are not pay-ing according to the numberof subscriber homes. “Theusage of set-top-box will-bring transparency in cableservice as the broadcasterwill know the exact sub-scriber base,” says an advi-sor with Enam Consultant. Amajority of broadcasters arestill opposing CAS.— B A

Boxed-in, no more?Imported right now, home-grown later

DEEPFOCUS

Consumers•Pay only for what youwatch. Monthly bill forfree to air plus selectedentertainment channelscan be around Rs 150•Services: Video on demand; booking ticketsfrom home

Broadcasters•More ad revenue forstronger channels

Cablewalas• Money from free to airchannels and 50 percent commission frompay channels

Winners all

Mending ways? Stalinmeets jailed brother

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai:In a significantdevelopment, the newly-elected deputy general sec-retary of DMK, M K Stalin,met his elder brother M KAzhagiri in the TiruchyCentral Prison on Fridaymorning.W ith this move, ob-

servers say, patching upthe factionalism seems tobe Stalin’s top priority.According to reports,

Stalin was congratulatedby Azhagiri for his newpost. This is also the firsttime that the brothers metsince Azhagiri was arrest-ed on charges of being in-volved in the murder ofhis party leader and for-mer state minister Tha

Kiruttinan (Tha Ki) onM ay 20.It was the pow er strug-

gle between these two sonsof the party president MK arunanidhi that wit-nessed a north-south di-vide in the party.The orga-nizational polls were a bit-terly fought battles be-tween the supporters ofthe two brothers.The twobrothers are not on talkingterm s.During the recently con-

cluded polls Azhagiri andhis supporters had expect-ed to be given a bettershare of prominence tohold sw ay in the south.How ever,that did not hap-pen and it led to the mur-der of Tha Ki on the eve ofthe polls.

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CMYK

I N D I A SU N DAY TIMES O F INDIA New Delhi, June 8, 2003 7

I force my viewpointdown their throatsHe’s the new minty flavour of the season. W ith his can-dy looks,Shahid Kapur slayed the popsickle crow d andthe box office with his turn in Ishq Vishq.The son of ac-tors,Neelima Azeem and Pankaj Kapur,the new kid onthe block holds forth on his gene pool.H ow much time

do you spend withyour parents? Depends on

w hether I’m workingor not. But I do try tospend at least a cou-ple of hours a day forcompletely selfishreasons. That’s be-cause they’re suchgood actors and Ispend time withthem because oftheir knowledge ofthe profession.A re your parents

strict disciplinari-ans? A ny restric-tions?None at all. My mother is someone who leaves me to

m y own devices,w hile dad is someone who’s strict onlyw hen it comes to work. W ork is worship and not to bemessed around with.Do your parents try to see your point of view ?Oh yes,definitely.Sometimes of course,I force my

point of view down their throats.Can you talk to your parents about anything?

A ny taboo subjects? I can discuss anything with mom, w hile I can discuss,

ahem, ahem, most things with dad.Your dad wants you to be a doctor/engineer;you

w ant to join a rock band or become a model? W hatwill you do? Acting runs in the family.I inherited acting.So there

w as never any question of dissent. They only said thatI should be fully prepared before I face the camera.Do you smoke or drink in front of them? I neither smoke or drink. So there!Can you talk to them about sex? Did they talk to

you about sex and love?I can talk to them about it. But I’ve never felt the need

to.My parents had faith in me.W ill you get your girlfriend home to introduce to

your parents? Sure.I have introduced all my three previous girl-

friends to my parents.My father has already decidedthat I have to get married.Can you keep late nights or stay over at a friend’s

house?I have before.N ow,of course I’m older and wiser.Is the relationship you have with your parents

different from what they had with their parents? To some extent, yes.Though I don’t really know of the

extent of their relationship. Both my grandparentsw ere quite modern and forward thinking.W ill you live with them after marriage? N o,I don’t think so.I’ll live very close to them. That’s

because I want them to breathe easy.— Jitesh Pillai

Say no to communalism: DigvijayTIMES NEWS NETWORK

Bhopal: Chief minister DigvijaySingh has written a letter to PrimeMinister Atal Bihari Vajpayee re-questing him ‘‘to rein in the variousHindu organisations,w hich are try-ing to stoke communalism in MadhyaPradesh on the issue of the Bhojshala-Kamal Maula Mosque at Dhar.’’Digvijay also informed the Prime

Minister that what the BJP-VHP andHindu Jagran Manch is claiming to bethe statue of goddess Sarasw ati is ac-cording to the British High Commis-sioner to India the sculpture of Jaingoddess ‘‘Ambica’’. The belief of theBJP and Hindu organisations that thesculpture in London Museum is theSarasw ati of Bhojshala is,therefore,amisunderstanding.In his letter Digvijay Singh alleged

that people belonging to assorted Hin-du organisations like the RSS,the Ba-jrang Dal and the BJP are attemptingto ‘‘vitiate the communal atmos-phere’’in Madhya Pradesh throughunceasing agitation over the ancientmonument known as the Bhojshala-Kamal Maula Mosque.

The chief minister has sought thePrime Minister’s immediate interven-tion for maintaining communal tran-quillity in Madhya Pradesh which healleged is now threatened by elementsw hich occupy responsible positions inthe Union government and the BJP.

‘‘In a democracy,elections come reg-ularly and enable people to choosetheir governments.These have to befought on the basis of political ideolo-gy and programmes,’’Digvijay wrote.‘‘Issues which threaten social and

c o m munal harmony, m ust never beraked up for narrow political gains.Our fragile polity cannot afford suchdangerous experiments.Nor can weafford a negation of the plurality ofour past, w hich has evolved into arich, m ultidimensional and truly In-dian heritage.I request you to takem atters in to your own hands to reinin these elements quickly and firmly.’’The chief minister complained that

on Tuesday,Union minister of statefor culture Bhavna Ben Chikalia andBJP leader Uma Bharti went to Bho-jshala in a procession and performedaarti and bhajan inside,m uch to theconsternation of Muslims.Chikaliaalso directed the Archaeological Sur-vey of India officials on duty to permitmedia persons with photographicequipment into the premises,w hich isforbidden.‘‘The Union minister publicly de-

clared the monument a temple andsaid that the statue of goddessSarasw ati, w hich had been takenaw ay from the monument to theBritish Museum shall be brought backand installed,’’Digvijay explained.

RLD vice-president quitsLucknow: The RashtriyaLok Dal (RLD), campaigningfor dislodging the Mayaw atigovernment in UttarPradesh, received a jolt onSaturday when its vice-presi-dent Rameshwar Singh re-signed from the party andfloated Lok Dal (CharanSingh).At a hurriedly called Press

conference, Singh said hew as leaving the party inprotest against its chief AjitSingh’s ‘‘autocratic style offunctioning and favouri-tism’’. He claimed all RLDlegislators were with him.Singh said he supported

the Mayaw ati governmentand claimed that it enjoyedmajority.PTI

Samata MPsurrenders Chhapra (Bihar): SamataParty MP Prabhunath Singh,against whom a districtcourt here had issued an ar-rest warrant for allegedly as-saulting a superintending en-gineer in his official cham-ber,surrendered before thepolice on Saturday eveningw hich, after questioning,granted him bail.Singh arrived at the

Chhapra town police stationalong with a large number ofhis supporters and surren-dered before the police.After taking a written re-

ply from the MP to a 14-pointquestion, the police grantedhim bail, police sources said.Sadar SDM Arun Kumar

Saran and deputy superin-tendent of police Hari Mo-han Shukla were present atthe police station. PTI

AFP

People pray for rain on the dried up Osman Sagar lake in Hyderabad on Saturday.

Peace move totop Advani’stalks in US, UK

TIMES NEWS NETWORK AND PTI

Mumbai: Deputy Prime Minister L K A d-vani left on Saturday for a 10-day visit to theUS and Britain. The likely issues which willtop his agenda during talks with leaders ofthe two countries will be India’s fresh peaceinitiative with Pakistan and the fight againstterrorism.He would raise the issue of terrorism with

the two countries,besides talking about thenations which aided terrorism, he told re-porters here before boarding the flight toNew York.The visit assumes significance as it comes

close on the heels of PM Atal Bihari Vajpay-ee’s talks with US President George W Bush,British Prime Minister Tony Blair,RussianPresident Vladimir Putin, French PresidentJacques Chirac and Chinese President HuJintao in St Petersburg last week.A dvani said relations between India and

the US had changed fundamentally since theend of the Cold W ar.Both the countries hadborne the brunt of terrorist attacks and thecordial relations between them would beused to promote world peace,he added.The Deputy Prime Minister will hold wide-

ranging discussions with the US leadershipand reinforce the need for Pakistan to endcross-border terrorism to create conduciveatmosphere for resumption of Indo-Pak dia-logue,official sources said.

Udayshankar

•Digvijay asks PM to restrainHindu organisations from stokingcommunalism on the Bhojshala-Kamal Maula Mosque issue

•BJP leaders Bhavna BenChikalia and Uma Bharti performed aarti on the templepremises

• Chikalia declared that thestatue of goddess Saraswatiwould be installed in the temple

Religious fire

LET’S TALK PARENTING

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By Sandeep MishraTIMES NEWS NETWORK

Bhubanesw ar: Congresspresident Sonia Gandhiturned emotional here onSaturday when she recalledIndira Gandhi’s last speech,w hich she delivered inBhubanesw ar a few days be-fore her death in 1984.During her whistle-stop

trip, the AICC chief beganher address to a mammothgathering by referring to theIndira Gandhi’s words, inw hich she spoke of servingthe nation till her last drop ofblood. ‘‘That speech can nev-er be forgotten. If w e work inthat spirit we can face anychallenge,’she said.

She also eulogised her latehusband Rajiv Gandhi’s con-tributions including themeasures he had taken fordevelopment of KBK region.‘‘Now when I hear about peo-ple selling their children dueto poverty I feel very sad,’’she remarked.During her half-an-hour

public function at the Exhibi-tion Ground here,the Con-gress chief mounted a strongoffensive on the Naveen Pat-naik’s government and calledupon the public to raise theirvoices for a change.She alsopraised the work of previousCongress regimes and ap-pealed the party rank and fileto ‘‘save the beautiful statefrom barbaadi and bring it

back on the path of pragati’’.‘‘The state government is

not functioning as it should,’’she said. She referred to theunderrating of paddy and de-lay in disbursing crop insur-ance benefits and said:‘‘When farmers are not get-ting proper benefits no devel-opment is possible.’’Saturday’s meet was the

first major show of strengthby the Congress in the statecapital ever since the BJD-BJP alliance came to pow erin March, 2000. And the AICCchief took the opportunity tohighlight the failures of thestate government.

She spoke about the prob-lems faced by lakhs of youths

due to lack ofemploymentopportunities,uncertaintyover Paradipoil refinery,m ove to priva-

tise Nalco and atrocities ontribals,dalits and the back-w ard classes.She maintained that peo-

ple have alw ays faced prob-lems whenever there is no

Congress government.‘‘Problems due to naturalcalamities are understood.But manmade problems can-not be forgiven,’’ she said.‘‘The people should raisetheir voices.Change is need-ed in tune with public opin-ion. Congress is ready forsangarsh,’’she said.

Gandhi also came dow nheavily on the NDA govern-ment and dubbed it as a gov-ernment of ‘‘hollow promis-es and hollow slogans’’.‘‘Orissa has not got any bene-fit although BJD is part ofN DA,’’she observed. ‘‘Evenfor the supercyclone victimsthe Centre did not give ade-quate assistance. So I hadasked the Congress chiefministers to extend help.AllCongress chief ministers ex-tended aid with a largeheart,’’ she added. Shepraised the performance ofall Congress governments.

CMYK

I N D I A8 SU N DAY TIMES O F INDIA New Delhi, June 8, 2003

Sonia walks down memory lane in Bhubaneswar

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Kasuri for talks inJune, India wary

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

N ew Delhi: Pakistan foreignminister Khurshid MahmudK asuri said in an interviewto the Pakistan daily TheNews that talks between In-dia and Pakistan would beheld this month-end or inearly July.How ever, external affairs

ministry sources here main-tain that it is too early tospeak of talks.‘‘We are goingstep by step tow ards normal-isation of situation first’’said an official source ‘‘andw ould not like to make anyhasty announcement in thisrespect.’’In the interview, K asuri

added, the ‘‘roadmap fortalks between India and Pak-istan would soon come tolight,’’ after which the twocountries would graduallym ove tow ards talks.

The Pakistani foreign min-ister declared that Pakistanw ould positively respond toevery Indian move aimed atnormalisation of ties and im-provement of bilateral rela-tions. He said that durablepeace could come to the re-gion with the settlement ofall issues, including Kash-mir.How ever, a government

source said, India wouldaw ait a Pakistani announce-ment of a roadmap before re-sponding.He said, steps,likerestoring diplomatic rela-tions and overflight facilities,releasing of prisoners,w erebeing taken to normalise re-lations with Pakistan. Eventhe Delhi-Lahore bus serviceis about to be restored. On allof these issues, India hadsought clarifications fro mPakistan, he added.

Caste violence continues in JalandharJalandhar: Curfew wasclamped in more areas hereon Saturday as caste vio-lence continued for the thirdday. FIRs were registeredagainst Punjab BJP vice-president Vijaya Sampla,district BSP chief Paw anTinu and 12 others for al-legedly instigating riots.A minor clash broke out

this morning in Talhan vil-lage, w here an indefinitecurfew had been in forcesince Thursday night, fol-lowing clashes betweenJats,Sikhs and Dalits,offi-cial sources said.O vernight violence was

reported from a number ofareas in the district,prompting authorities toclamp curfew in Buta Man-di, Bhargo Camp,Abadpura,Siddharth Nagar,Ravi DassN agar, Jyoti Chowk andNakodar Chowk, they said.Besides Sampla and Tinu,

the police have booked DalitAction Committee presidentChannu Ram and commit-tee member Lahori Ram,among others,in connectionwith the violence.Shops remained closed

here in response to the Ja-landhar bandh call given bythe Dalit Action Committee

and policemen were de-ployed in view of the crema-tion of a Dalit youth killedin police firing, followingclashes on Thursday night.W hile the Janata Dal (Sec-

ular) accused the Opposi-tion, the Shiromani Akali

Dal (SAD) and theBharatiya Janata Party(BJP), of ‘‘vitiating’’the at-mosphere of the state anddemanded a CBI probe intothe Jat Sikh-Dalit violence,SAD chief Parkash SinghBadal sought immediate

resignation of chief minis-ter Amarinder Singh.‘‘The chief minister

should own responsibilityfor his utter failure to givegood and effective gover-nance to the state and stepdown without any further

delay,’’ he told reportershere.Alleging there was no law

and order in the state,Badalsaid he would bring thegrowing lawlessness to thenotice of the governor andthe Union home ministry.‘‘The explosive situation

in the state,following inci-dents at Talhan village,isthe direct consequence ofthe policy of drift and utternegligence on the part ofthe chief minister,’’ he al-leged.Badal said the issue had

been brewing for sometimeand even the National Com-mission for ScheduledCastes and ScheduledTribes had asked the state totake timely steps to diffusethe situation.‘‘But the government sat

tight over its constitutionalresponsibility and allow edthings to drift in a danger-ous direction,’’he said.The Akali leader said

casteist violence had nevertaken place in Punjab.‘‘Even during the days ofmilitancy, the state re-mained free from commu-nal, casteist or any otherform of mob violence,’’hesaid. PTI

PTI

A violent mob stops the New Delhi-Amritsar super-fast train at Ram Nagar crossing in Jalandhar on Friday night.

•First show of strengthsince the BJP-BJD combine came to power

•Sonia said states with-out a Congress Govt hasalways had problems

•She asked the peopleto rise against the Govt

Remembers Indira

Teargas usedto disperseprotestors Srinagar: Police on Satur-day fired shots in the air andused teargas shells to dis-perse several hundred peopleprotesting the killing of eightmilitants in an encounterwith security forces at Zaina-pora in Shopian area of Pul-w ama district in south Kash-mir on Friday night.Police used force as people

marched on the streets ofZainapora in violation ofprohibitory orders and alsopelted stones on Shopian po-lice station demanding bod-ies of the slain militants,offi-cial reports said.The militants,belonging to

Jaish-e-Mohammad andLashker-e-Toiba, w ere killedby the troops of Rashtriya Ri-fles in a gunfight duringsearch operations at villageHafguri-Weehbug nearZainapora on Friday night. PTI

CMYK

I N D I A SU N DAY TIMES O F INDIA New Delhi, June 8, 2003 9

TOI

Policemen pelt stones at BJP workers. They attacked each other when a demonstrationturned violent in Bhopal on Saturday.

Hizb headed for a split: Intelligence reportsBy Mohua ChatterjeeTIMES NEWS NETWORK

N ew Delhi: Pakistan’s InterServices Intelligence (ISI) isw orried about reports thatrival groups within thelargest Kashmiri militantoutfit, Hizb-ul-Mujahideen(HuM) are preparing for abloody show down, say intel-ligence reports.A clear di-vide has been emergingwithin the HuM cadres,heading tow ards a split inthe group — between thoseowing allegiance to slainK ashmiri leader Abdul Ma-jid Dar and Islamabad-basedHuM chief and United Jeha-di Council head SyedSalauddin.Intelligence sources in

Pakistan say the conflict be-tween the groups could be-gin anytime. In a precau-tionary measure, the Pak-istani police sw ooped dow non Pakistan-occupied-Kash-

mir (PoK) about a monthback and took into custody14 HuM terrorists — sevenfrom each side — to avert apossible clash.Supporters of the moder-

ate Dar, have been up inarms following his killing inhis hometown Sopore inMarch. They believe the ISIand hardliner Salauddinw ere behind the killing,since Dar had been propa-gating the need for peace inJa m mu and Kashmir (J&K)in the recent past.The situation in PoK

points to a vertical split inthe HuM and a possible de-fection of some Dar-factionleaders back into J&K, ac-cording to reports from Pak-istan. The ISI and Salahud-din have been trying to stopthese defections.The ISI-handlers of the

HuM cadres are worried atthis possibility since, anym ovement of Dar’s menback into J&K would mean amajor body blow to Pak-istan’s plan of disturbingpeace in the state.As a result, the ‘‘han-

dlers’’have been instigatingcadres from the Salahuddin-faction to stop Dar’s sup-porters from crossing over.But the result has only beenheated exchange betweenthem as Dar’s supporters be-lieve they are not safe inPakistan, after the murderof their leader.Reports from Pakistan

add that the police arrestedHuM cadres in PoK in an at-tempt to save face. A nykilling of rival cadres wouldhave meant great embar-rassment to Pakistan, espe-cially since it has been deny-ing any terrorist presenceon its land.Also,it is important for

Pakistan to keep the HuMon its side,to prove that themilitancy in Kashmir is a‘‘freedom struggle,’’ sincemost of its cadre constitutesof indigenous Kashmiripeople, unlike the LeT orJeM.

A split in the HuM rankw as apparent when 200armed supporters of Dar,staged a protest demonstra-tion in Muzzafarabad, afterDar’s murder, accusingSalauddin of orchestratingthe killing.Tufail Altaf,one of Dar’s

leading supporters and for-mer district commanders ofthe HuM announced a newfaction of the group whichhas been launched in Muzaf-farabad.He said Ahmed Yaseen

had been appointed chief ofthis group and claimed theyhad the support of at least40 per cent of the HuM mili-tants in the group.The newly appointed

Ja m mu and Kashmir gover-nor Gen S K Sinha, took abriefing at the IntelligenceBureau headquarters here,on the ground situation inthe state before leaving forSrinagar.

MTNL actstough withTata Infotech

By Sanjay DuttaTIMES NEWS NETWORK

N ew Delhi: State-ownedfirms no longer make softcustomers for private sec-tor firm s. MahanagarTelephone Nigam Ltd(MTNL) has refused toclear a Rs 7-crore bill toTata Infotech, saying thebilling software providedby the company for its Dol-phin cellular service inDelhi failed for the firstsix months.Sources said MTNL

gave a contract to Tata In-fotech for Rs 9.5 crore for abilling software for its cel-lular service in Delhi. Rs 2crore was paid as work onthe software developmentprogressed.W hen MTNL launched

its cellular service in Feb-ruary 2001, it found thatthe software was unable togenerate bills for the firstsix months. As a result,the telecom firm wasstraddled with uncollect-ed bills for Rs 10 crore forthis period.‘‘For the first six

months,our Dolphin cus-tomers did not receive anybill. Then they were sentone bill for this whole pe-riod. N aturally manyfailed to clear dues imme-diately as they found theamount too much to clearat one go,’’ one sourcesaid. ‘‘This is a poor startfor any service.Responsi-bility has to befixed...there is a cost in-volved,’’the source said.Though 70 per cent of

Dolphin revenue comesfrom pre-paid cards, un-paid bills from the servicehave now sw elled to Rs 25crore.

Difficult times•Hizb may split

•Conflict betweenfollowers of slain Abdul Majid Dar andSyed Salauddin

•Pak has taken intocustody 14 Hizb men

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Can Venkaiah Naiduhold on to his job?

By Smita GuptaTIMES NEWS NETWORK

N ew Delhi: Five days into theleadership controversy in theBJP,the questions being askedin party circles are: Can partypresident M Venkaiah Naidukeep his job,after falling foulof the Prime Minister? Has hebecome a liability? Speculation is rife that a de-

cision will be taken at the par-ty’s chintan baithak (meeting)in Mumbai, starting June 17,after Deputy PM L K A dvanireturns from his foreign tour— for nothing will happenwithout consulting him — andbefore the Prime Ministerleaves for China on June 22.A BJP insider says: ‘‘In the

history of the Jan Sangh andBJP,no one who has fallen foulof him has survived, w hetherit was Balraj Madhok in theold days or Govindacharyamore recently.Such is the aurathat surrounds Vajpayee.’’An indication of the Prime

Minister’s anger,sources said,w as reflected on Friday in thestatement of HRD ministerMurli Manohar Joshi — who isseen as batting for the PrimeMinister — when he said theterm ‘‘Vikas Purush’’for thePrime Minister had not beenendorsed by any of the party’sthree decision-making bodies.On Saturday,Naidu was cir-

cumspect when asked aboutJoshi’s statement: ‘‘The PrimeMinister,deputy PM and I, asparty president, have clarifiedthat there is no controversy.Iwill maintain the party tradi-tion of not commenting onpublic statements of partyleaders.’’But the circumspection may

have come too late,for the buzzin party circles is that the BJPcan’t afford a president whohabitually makes controver-sial statements.Of course,the problem, par-

ty sources admit, in replacing

Naidu is it could further tar-nish the party image.He is notjust the third president in thecurrent tenure; if he isdropped, he will be the thirdsouth Indian to bite the dust,after Bangaru Laxman and KJana Krishnamurthy. Also,having tried three second-gen-eration presidents,the BJP isw ary of trying a fourth,thoughthe names of PramodMahajan and Gujarat chiefminister Narendra Modi havesurfaced.Another view is that in an

election year, the BJP re-quires,a ‘‘stronger stew ard’’.So,w hy not A dvani himself? Itw ould save Naidu’s face,sources say, and fulfill thePM’s statement that A dvaniwill lead the party to victory inthe next elections.Naidu, meanwhile,has been

trying to draw comfort fro mRSS chief K Sudarshan’sphone call on Friday. Sudar-shan is reported to have ad-vised Naidu to focus more onits ideology and principles andless on individuals even as heappreciated the ‘‘good work’’he had done as party chief.Naidu is trying to weather

the storm by energetically en-gaging in party activity till A d-vani returns. After a Fridayspent in Guwahati, he willspend time in Ahmedabad,Chennai and Rew a before ad-dressing an election campaigncommittee meeting, follow edby a media workshop here.

•BJP can’t afford to dropthe party president withpolls so close

•Naidu will be the thirdsouth Indian to be removed

•Mahajan, Modi and evenAdvani have been sug-gested as replacements

Dropping Naidu

President teacheschildren to dream

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Bangalore: Interaction with President A P J AbdulKalam was a mixture of science lessons and encourage-ment for over 200 government and corporation school stu-dents,gathered at the ISKCON temple on Saturday.The President launched a new scheme to upscale the

Akshaya Patra mid-day meal scheme to cover one lakhstudents,through the ‘‘kids for kids’ progra m m e,w hererich children sponsor the meal for poor ones.But more than science,Kalam had a new ‘‘inspira-

tional’’form ula for the children: ‘‘Dream, think and workto make your dreams a reality.’’W hen a student appealed saying: ‘‘We have a dream

that one day every child in India will be well-fed, w ell-ed-ucated and well looked after,’’K alam put the ball in thechildren’s court. ‘‘You take food under Akshaya Patranow.W hen you start earning,you should say,I will givefood.’’Kalam said Akshaya Patra (bottomless vessel), w hich

w as now serving Anna (rice), should serve Vidya (knowl-edge). ‘‘Students should share their education with lessprivileged children. I would like to see this processspread,’’he added.The President had one more message for the children.

Sharing his memories of August 14, 1947, Kalam said herounded up 780 of 800 students in his school to witnesshoisting of the Indian flag at midnight.‘‘The next day,I saw two photographs in the newspaper.

One was Prime Minister Pandit Jaw aharlal Nehru hoist-ing the flag,the other was the Father of the Nation whow as in Bengal to remove the pain of communal riots.I re-alised then that leaders discard pain when it comes tothem, but noble leaders go where there is pain and suf-fering and remove them.’’And he urged the children: ‘‘You must all say — I will

become a great, noble leader and remove the pain and suf-fering of the people.’’Kalam, along with Karnataka governor T N Chaturve-

di and chief minister S M Krishna, had lunch with thechildren and personally served them rice and curd.Prasad from Uttarahalli government school, w ho sat

next to Kalam, said: ‘‘He asked me what I wanted to study.W hen I said engineering,he said: Good!’’

PTI

President A P J Abdul Kalam serving children food aspart of the ongoing Akshya Patra programme at the International Society for Krishna Consciousness templein Bangalore on Saturday.

CMYK

SU N DAY TIMES O F INDIA New Delhi, June 8, 2003 11

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I’m a UNIX specialist, and for nearly twoyears I’ve been unable to secure any work asa contractor.I’ve not lost any job except indi-rectly through outsourcing or onshore workby Indians.Sources within certain compa-

nies have told me they suddenly had people from foreigncompanies and abroad who were doing the same job.Themajority were from India. I’ve got no problem with them.But I’m very angry with the British government becausethey’re using the taxpayer’s money to support anothercountry’s industry.I think this is all about cash for(work) permits.Things have been hard. I’ve had to re-mortgage my house,use up my savings and have beenregistered unemployed since December 2002. My skillsare getting rusty.I feel like I’m going dow na country road and I don’t know where it’sleading.

●● Graham Tuer, 41, Leicestershire

‘My skills are getting rusty’

In the beginning they were justcode coolies and call centre Char-lies.Dour drudges who wrote mil-lions of lines of code for slavew ages; and distant drones who an-

sw ered (in thick Indian accents) basicquestions about billing and ticketing inthe (American) afterhours.For a while,it had looked perfect — a

low-cost, 24/7 work cycle,freeingAmer-ican workers to do more importantstuff.Then, as the never-ending eco-nomic downturn spiralled, it began tohurt. More so, w hen unemploymentpassed 6 per cent, putting some ninemillion Americans out of w ork.Some of the figures are mind-bog-

gling. Forrester Research estimatesthat 3.3 million service-sector jobs willhave left the US by 2015, perhaps half ofthem to India. Deloitte analyst Christo-pher Gentle predicts that firms in themajor industrialised nations wouldm ove two million jobs to low-wagecountries over the next five years,again mostly to India.Sometimes you wonder if it is all an

exaggeration. As things stand now In-dia has only around 100,000 call centrejobs,second to Australia (135,000). In-dia may have another 100,000 higherend jobs.India is ‘expected’ to overtake

Australia in the next two years.Afterthat, with its burgeoning English grad-uate population, India will just runaw ay with the outsourcing ball. In fact,everything said about outsourcing isbased on projections.That would still be okay (for the

Americans) as long as they were thoseboring call centre jobs.But the Indiansare now beginning to get non-talkingtech jobs,number-crunching jobs,de-signing jobs and just about every kindof w ork that required skill, speed andimagination. For instance, account-ants at Ernst and Young’s India officenow case US tax returns for the firm’sAmerican clients. Indians processclaims for major US insurance compa-nies,radiologists interpret CT scansfor Massachusetts General Hospitaland molecular biologists conduct re-search for pharmaceuticals.Early this year,the management con-

sultant company AT Kearney sentshock waves through the beleagueredAmerican economy predicting thatover the next five years,financial serv-ices companies nationwide are plan-ning to relocate more than 500,000 jobsoverseas — nearly eight per cent of U Sfinancial sector’s work force — much ofit to India.

Kearney it-self w as strick-en with Indiani-tis.Not only hadthe company be-gun outsourc-ing its ow nw ork to India,but the firm’sstudy rankedIndia as the best

country overall for offshore businessprocessing,follow ed by Canada, Brazil,M exico,the Philippines,Hungary,etc.It put the final seal of approval on whathad long been suspected going by thenumbers — India is the place to go.The move by financial companies is

w hat has really rattled the Americans.In fact, for several months,as long aslesser jobs were slowly disappearingfrom middle American cities likePhoenix or Charlotte, there wasn’tm uch of a panic. But following theKearney study,everyone began lookingat the big financial firm s.JP Morgansaid it was hiring 40 junior stock ana-lysts and other research staffers to addto the hundreds in its Mumbai officethis year.Morgan Stanley said it too,asdid CitiBank. Deutsche Bank AGjoined the bash by contracting work

through Irevna Limited, a London-based consultancy.Meanwhile, the American media

also added to the concerns — and nowpanic — with relentless coast-to-coastcoverage about the job losses.In smalland medium-sized US cities such asPhoenix, Arizona, Portland, and Ore-gon, the loss of even a thousand jobs at-tracts page one headlines.Last month, the Portland Business

Journal ran a five-part series on out-sourcing and its effect on the localeconomy (Intel is one of the biggest lo-cal employers there and is ramping upat chip speed in India). Cleveland PlainDealer ran a story headlined ‘Sendingw ork to India’. Boston Globe follow edwith ‘Passage to India’.Indeed, outsourcing is becoming a

major issue in middle America andmight just become a political football inthe build-up to the elections next year.Take the case of a state like Arizona,w hose two major cities,Phoenix andTucson, are home to some of the coun-try’s biggest call centres.In Tucson,w hose 16,000 call centre jobs make upnearly 5 per cent of the city’s workforce,there’s gloom following moves bythe parent companies of the city’sthree largest call centres — Convergys,

Intuit and America Online — to movejobs to India.● Convergys,with 1600 seats in Tucson,now has a 3000-person facility near Del-hi, some of them providing technicalsupport to Microsoft W indows.● America Online has opened call cen-tres in India and hired hundreds forbilling,tech support, and communityaction (to deal with users who breakAOL rules).● Intuit has contracts with Indian com-panies to provide weekend and after-hours services out of India.So just what the Americans are say-

ing and doing now? Groups such asW ashtech Group,Programmers Guildand NomoreH1b.com have begun on-line and street protests.They are writ-ing to law m a kers and pressurisingthem into considering legislation to re-duce immigration and control out-sourcing.They are raising questionsabout security because of w ork beingdone by foreigners.How ever,amid allthe hoopla and hysteria what the Amer-icans won’t tell you is...● A steep decline in the number ofAmericans enrolling in engineering,technical and science schools created agenuine tech worker shortage in the1990s.

● Outsourcing was primarily aimed atengendering a 24/7 work cycle and stilldoes that; typically calls go to India af-ter the American workday.● Foreign firms in the US create jobs.TCS,for instance,has 54 offices andemploys scores of Americans.If Amer-icans were to cut out immigrants andforeigners from its hi-tech world, itw ould collapse.● In many cases American firms them-selves are setting up units in India.● Nearly three-quarters of Americanfamilies invest in the stock market andw ant companies to improve their per-formance.Deloitte analyst ChristopherGentle says moving two million jobs tolow-wage countries could save thew orld’s 100 largest firms $138 billion ayear by 2008. The AT Kearney studysays transfer of over 500,000 will resultin annual savings of $30 billion.So what will happen now? Hard to

say.In the 1980s and 1990s,Americanw orkers,the blue-collar types,marchedthe streets to protest trade agreementssuch as NA F TA and the movement ofmanufacturing jobs from the US toM exico and Asia. They were told the fu-ture lay in high-tech jobs.N ow Ameri-cans may have to look for a new future.

Chidanand Rajghatta

T he Indian is Britain’s new ‘‘ugly American’’. He rules thewide,wired world. Stereotype has it he’s dirt cheap anddead clever,with a silicon chip in place of a brainbox. It

doesn’t seem to matter whether he is over here or over there.Legend has it, he’ll take a British job any way.And tightervisa rules won’t keep him out.‘‘Roughly one in every six UK IT jobs,about 100,000, are af-

fected by Indian workers and that includes offshore and on-shore,but not the telecom industry,’’says Gurdial Rai, aBritish Asian IT consultant and director of the UK’s largesttrade body,Professional Contractors Group (PCG). Lamentsunemployed IT consultant Graham Tuer:‘‘The majority ofthe people from foreign companies and abroad who’re doingthe same jobs as we once did are Indians.’’Says Sally Bridges of C W U,Britain’s largest communica-

tion workers union: ‘‘Our worst fears have come to light.’’The trade unions,echoed by the right-wing British NationalParty,w arn of a massive,cataclysmic jobs flight. It could runinto hundreds of thousands and potentially even two million

once all the Scottish, W elsh and Eng-lish call centres are drained, they say.This,because Britain’s largest tele-com company BT,its leading insur-ance company Prudential, its largestmail order company Reality-GUS andsome of its biggest banks have al-ready set up call centres in India.It’s the “global redistribution of

labour,” intones Dr Brian Nicholson,one of the authors of a new book to beout in August, Global IT Outsourcing.

“It can’t be stopped or reversed.” But that doesn’t stop themfrom trying.Amicus,the largest private sector trade union, and CWU

keep threatening national strikes.For years,they’ve lobbiedwith the Labour government to incorporate strict EU regu-lations in the UK to make it harder to ship jobs overseas.Rai,w ho serves on a government advisory body called the IT Sec-tor Panel Group,says they’re seriously pushing for ways to‘‘prevent the abuse of a loophole in the law.’’That law dealswith intra-company transfers,a rule routinely used by Indi-an companies to import workers from India.Trouble is,claim Rai and Tuer,most of the Indian imports

are surplus to UK requirements and are doing jobs thatBritish IT workers could do just as well.But probably not as cheaply.Cost considerations,reasons

Nicholson, will alw ays rule.Rai says it may be time for Indi-an and British companies ‘‘to work with each other and notagainst each other.’’He wants the W ipros and TCSs ‘‘to em-ploy a few UK resident staffas well and give back to the com-m unity they’re in.’’But, for now,that may be a virtual dream scenario.

Rashmee Z Ahmed

●● Aston Martin, one of thew orld’s most expensive carbrands,has contracted out pro-totyping its latest luxury sports-car to India-based designerDilip Chhabria. This would bethe cheapest car to roll out ofAston Martin’s stables.●● Maruti has been the preferredsupplier of small cars under theSuzuki brand for Europe.Suzu-ki has now decided to make In-dia its manufacturing and ex-port hub outside Japan.●● Hyundai has decided to phaseout Santro production in SouthKorea and make India the soleproduction hub for the car.It’s Outsourcing Part II:

The manufacturing industry

w orldwide, par-ticularly in theautomotive seg-ment, is fast dis-covering India asa productionbase for theirglobal markets.“There’s more to it than just theprice advantage.There are man-ufacturers who find compo-nents made in India cheaperthan elsew here.But then thereare also firms that source fro mIndia despite a comparativelyhigher price.And that’s becauseof the quality,” says VishnuM athur,executive director,Au-tomotive Component Manufac-turers’ Association.

GM and Fordare prime exam-ples of qualityseekers. For twoyears running,GM has aw ardedSundaram Clay-ton its best suppli-

er aw ard and the volumes beingsourced out of India are grow -ing every year.Ditto for Ford.Last week, it presented the GoldW orld Excellence aw ard toCooper Tyres.Ford is sourcing close to $40

million worth of componentsfrom India. “Ford is, in fact,planning to double or even tre-ble its sourcing of componentsfrom India in the next few

years,” Ford India vice-presi-dent Arvind Mathew says.FordIndia is already the sole manu-facturing and supply base forIkon cars and components,w hich are exported to Mexico,China and Africa. The companyhas also shifted most of its back-office accounting and IT opera-tions to India.“This is just the beginning...

Sourcing from India means atleast a 15 per cent cost benefitfor global auto firm s.But it’s theconsistency in delivery andquality that makes them comeback to India,”says Krishna Ke-jriwal, MD of the Mumbai-based Remsons Industries.

Byas Anand

Aston to Alto, they’re vrooming in

After completing my BA (Hons) in Sociologyfrom Hindu College,I joined Daksh eServicesas a customer care representative.I havebeen working here for nine months.My job:to provide customer care service to clients

based in the US.I help them activate phones and providesolutions in case of difficulties.Our salaries are good.W e start between Rs 8,000 and Rs 12,000 and one can getperformance-based incentives upto Rs 5,000 every monthon meeting targets.I hope to become a team leader in ayear’s time.One of m y colleagues has recently become ateam leader and will be flying to the US for training.Am I a threat to anybody? W hy should I be? I have not

snatched anyone’s job.Their fears are baseless.In fact,American companies are coming to India only becauseit’s a profitable proposition.We are also contributing tothe US economy by doing their backroom jobs here.In ashrinking world, it does not really matter whether a jobis being done locally or thousands of milesaw ay.The bottomline is to do the job well..

●● Summona Ghosh, customer care representative, Daksh eServices, Gurgaon

‘It’s a shrinking world’

2015: 3.3 million US jobs may go offshore. 2003: The West waves banners of protest. The big threat: India’s backroom boys. Sunday Times on the raging debate...

Britain’s newest‘ugly American’

Photo: Neeraj Paul, Location: A call centre in Delhi

Who’s afraid of IndianITES?

Backroom boys: Why we are the best

● Low costs

● A large pool of English-speaking skilled manpower

● Quality assurance : More Indian companies have a CMM-SEI 5 rating (for thehighest quality software) than any country including the US

● Very high productivity

● Conducive policy environment, strong government support

● 24X7 service, reduction in turnaround time by leveraging time zone differences

1,475

2,375

3,600*

Employees; 000

Revenue($ million)

106.5

171.1

350*

ITES growth curve

* projected figures Source: NASSCOM

2001-02 2002-03 2003-04Bottomline Benefits for US$42,927 Annual cost of a full-time employee in US

$6,179 Cost of employee in India

$58,598 Total expenses of onshore outfit

$11,854 Total expenses of outsourcing to India

$142 b Growth of ITES market in India by 2009 (McKinsey).

$8 b Savings of US banks, financial services and insur-

ance companies in the last four years$450 m Savings of GE Capital and American Express per year92 % Satisfaction ratings reported by GE from its Indian

call centre85% Satisfaction ratings from GE onshore centres3.3 m Number of jobs likely to move out of US, half to India,

by 2015, says Forrester Research

W ho is afraid of the Backlash? Judgingby the number of clients visitingBPO facilities in India, there is no

cause for alarm. Says Vikram Talw ar,C E O,EXL Services,the No.1 BPO provider as perNasscom’s ranking for 2002: ‘‘Till the bene-fits of outsourcing for the bottomline re-main a compelling proposition, such con-cerns will be shortlived.’’The US and UKcontribute 59 per cent and 22 per cent re-spectively to India’s ITES-BPO exports of $2.3 billion.According to Sunil Mehta, vice-president,

Nasscom, the recent spate of protests are aresult of a global economic slow down andwill recede once there’s an upswing.‘‘Histo-ry shows that resistance to offshoring hasresulted in depletion of long-term competi-tiveness of the industry globally,’’he says.Outsourcing is inevitable in the wake of

the pressures thatbusinesses world-wide are facing.Nasscom believesthat this trend willcontinue as thereare tangible benefitsin terms of cost sav-ings, quality andproductivity.‘‘The resources

saved can be used to rew ard shareholders,employees and the community.Clients seethis as a compelling enough value proposi-tion — that’s why they are here and will con-tinue to move work to India,’’ says KGanesh, president of ICICI OneSource.In-terestingly,from an average of one clientvisit per month about six months back, ICI-CI OneSource is now getting six to eightprospects in a month.P V Kannan, C E O, 24/7Customer, sug-

gests some ways to contain fears in theW est: ‘‘If the outsourcing company taketheir employees into confidence,they willregard the decision more favourably.’’Meanwhile,the good news is that the In-

dian industry is on track to meet the $ 24 bil-lion target projected by the Nasscom-McK-insey Study for 2008. The ITES-BPO rev-enues are growing at a rate of 59.2 per cent.

Satya Prakash Singh

It’s business asusual at home

StoryIndian

USStory

UKStory

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NextBigThing

CMYK

I N T E R N A T I O N A L SU N DAY TIMES O F INDIA New Delhi, June 8, 2003 13

BRICKBATSI admire your ability to endure such se-vere criticism and assure you that verysoon you would set the world record forgetting the highest number of hate-mails in the shortest period of time.— sk_muz@indiatimes.comI think your time is up. You must have apoll. And I bet 99.9999999% will sayquit. Because yeh dil nahi mange more.— Anupam Anand

For bouquets go towww.timesofindia.com

e-mail: dubya-man@indiatimes.com

Reagan story on TV: For-mer US president and Holly-wood star Ronald Reagan isto take on a new starring role— in a television mini-seriesthat tells the story of his half-century love affair with hiswife Nancy. The Reagans isexpected to be a controver-sial account of one of Holly-wood and Washington’smost famous matches and isexpected to star acclaimedactress Judy Davis as NancyReagan. “It will not be aboutthe politics of the Reaganera but about the love storyabout Ronald and NancyReagan and their family,” aCBS executive said. AFP

Art for 90 minutes:Cuba’s first ephemeral artfestival lasted barely an hourand a half, until the butterpaintings and ice sculpturesbegan to melt, the childrenate the cupcakes hung froma tree and the grand pianowent up in flames. Therewere sculptures made fromflowers, paper and card-board egg trays and blind-folded domino players, allcompeting for the best ex-hibit of transitory art in asquare in Havana’s inner city.The winner, JeanetteChavez, a 22-year-old artstudent who won a night outat Havana’s famed Tropicanacabaret, poured gasoline ona wooden piano structureand set fire to it while mini-malist piano music blaredfrom speakers. Reuters

Granny goes to school:A 97-year-old great-grand-mother who quit school inthe fourth grade to help hersharecropper parents pickcotton will receive a highschool diploma after goingback to school to studycomputers. “I wanted to do

this when I was a young ladybut my parents just couldn’tafford it,” Gustava Bennett-Burrus said. She started taking computer classesat Richmond High inContra Costa County inNorthern California in Janu-ary and is set to receive anhonorary high school diploma next week. “I tell my grandkids, keep yourmind elevated.” Reuters

Artist mum for 29 years:An aspiring German painterrefused to speak for 29 yearsuntil his father’s death be-cause of paternal oppositionto his chosen career. “All Iwas interested in was art,but he was always against it.There came a point when Isimply had nothing more tosay,” Rainer Herpel, 51, said.Last year his father died, af-ter which Herpel graduallybegan talking again. Reuters

Brothel offers discount:A Nevada brothel offers freesex to US soldiers returningfrom the war in Iraq to thankthem for risking their lives.“We wanted to do somethingfor our soldiers and this isthe best we could do,” Den-nis Hof, director of the houseof ill repute, said. Soldierscan enjoy discounts of up to50 percent on a range ofservices, including Viagraparties, “vibrator shows” andmassage services. AFP

Singer Beyonce Knowles performs Crazy in Love as a tribute to award recipient Queen Latifah at the taping ofthe 2003 Essence Awards in Hollywood on Friday. Theawards honour personalities in the fields of music, film,theatre, television, radio, humour and activism.

I N T E R N AT I O N A L G R A F F I T IReuters

Los Angeles: Movie star SylvesterStallone has signed on to write, directand star in a new film tackling the thornysubject of corruption in the Los AngelesPolice Department. The movie, which willweave together real-life scandals anddramatic events involving the belea-guered police department, is expected tobegin production in September, accord-

ing to Daily Variety. Stallone will play detective RussellPoole who was involved in the probes into the murders ofrap star Tupac Shakur and his archrival, Notorious BIG. AFP

Rambo fights police corruption

Cellphone userscan retain theirold numbers

By Peter Kaplan and Andy Sullivan

W ashington: Mobile-phonecustomers may be able toswitch carriers without los-ing their phone numbers asearly as November after anappeals court rejected an in-dustry challenge on Friday.A three-judge panel upheld

the Federal CommunicationsCommission’s long-delayedrule forcing wireless tele-phone companies to let cell-phone customers keep theirphone numbers when theyswitch carriers.The US Court of A ppeals

for the District of Columbiaturned back arguments byVerizon W ireless and thecellphone industry’s tradegroup that the rule was un-necessary, arbitrary andcapricious.The FCC said last year that

the rule was needed becausecompanies would not likelyoffer the option on their own,locking in consumers whoare dissatisfied with theirservice but do not want tochange their phone number.The judges concluded that

the wireless companies hadfiled their challenge too late,and they dismissed the in-dustry’s contention that theagency had misinterpretedw hat the law deems “neces-sary” to protect consumers.The judges said the argu-

ment amounted to “duelingover dictionary definitions,”w hich it called “pointless.”“The simple truth is that

having to change phonenumbers presents a barrierto switching carriers,even ifnot a total barrier,since con-sumers cannot compare andchoose between various serv-ice plans and options as effi-ciently,” the judges said intheir opinion.The Cellular Telecommu-

nications and Internet Asso-ciation, w hich filed the chal-lenge,said in a statement itw as disappointed with thedecision and said the FCCm ust explain in detail howportability can be accom-plished.“If there is to be number

portability in November,theFCC must announce finalrules by Labor Day or con-sumers will find chaos in themarket,” CTIA PresidentTom W heeler said.Landline carriers must al-

ready offer number portabil-ity to those customers whow ant to switch providers.Af-ter several delays the FCC or-dered the wireless carriers tooffer the option to consumersby Nov.24 in order to boostcompetition. About 30 per-cent of the 144.5 million wire-less subscribers in the USchange carriers annually.Verizon W ireless, a joint

venture of Verizon Commu-nications and VodafoneGroup Plc,said it would beforced to divert resourcesaw ay from network upgradesand other service improve-ments to meet the deadline.Reuters

Future space craft: Swe-den is set to test a $500 millionprototype reusable space vehi-cle on Monday in a develop-ment which it is hoped willpave the way for future un-manned transportation sys-tems in space. The flightdemonstration will see the 10-foot, one-to-four scale vehiclelifted by a stratospheric balloonto a height of 19 miles. Reuters

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CMYK

I N T E R N A T I O N A L14 SU N DAY TIMES O F INDIA New Delhi, June 8, 2003

Mission to Mars: NASA has warnedthat a new mission to find signs of lifeon Mars, due to blast off on Sunday, isfraught with peril. A rocket carrying thefirst of two robots that will carry on thesearch is to lift off from Cape Canaveralin Florida on Sunday. NASA’s associateadministrator for space science EdWeiler warned 48 hours before the

launch: “It’s not a trip to the beach on aSunday afternoon.” He did not rule outthe possibility of problems on the mis-sion, particularly during the landings ex-pected in early January 2004. “We canhave a bad day on Mars. Wind. Badweather,” he said, noting that of 30 at-tempts at Mars missions over the past40 years just 12 have succeeded. Reuters

Foreign tongue: Indians should walk the talkA

t the height of the Amer-ican war on Taliban, theUS discovered that it

had almost no Pushtu and Darispeakers among its spooks andacademics (they can often dou-ble for each other). Apparently,there were a lot of problems in-terrogating some of the fundosw ho were hauled aw ay toGuantanamo Bay,and rumourhath it that W ashington had torequisition Pakistani transla-tors to do the job,with resultsthat were not very pleasing.It turned out the Americans

had neglected to bone up on thelanguages of the countriesthey were going to invade (al-though they did slightly betterin Iraq; there is a lot more Ara-bic expertise in the US).Pushtu and Dari are of

course rare foreign tongues.US spookdom does marginallybetter in Hindi. The state de-partment has a few Teluguspeakers,w hich turned out tobe good contin-gency since apast Indianprime ministerw as from thatstock and a fu-ture one couldbe too.A ny way, the

Pushtu-Dari story,apocryphalor otherwise,underscores theimportance of the world’s hy-perpow er needing to keep a fin-ger on the world’s linguisticpulse. W ho knows when itw ould be required to translatefrom Tamil or Tagalog? Foreign language studies are

quite popular in the US. Ac-cording to the US departmentof education, between 1982 and1998, the percentage of US highschool graduates who complet-

ed three yearsor more of aforeign lan-guage doubled,from 15 percentto 30 percent.During that pe-riod, the per-centage of

graduates who took no foreignlanguage declined to 19 per-cent, from 46 percent.The most popular foreign

language in US by far is Span-ish, follow ed by French (whichcould, pardon, soon change),German (also could be discard-ed, bitte), Russian, Japanese,

Italian and Chinese. Hindidoes not figure in the list. A p-parently,during the Cold W ar,New Delhi dissed American ac-ademics enough to kill thegrowth of Hindi in the US.The Indian Foreign Service

too encourages its diplomats tolearn foreign languages.But atthe more popular school andcollege level, foreign languagestudies are still very limited.Of course,it is entirely pos-

sible that with so many lan-guages in India the idea ofstudying more is too exhaust-ing to contemplate.On the oth-er hand, precisely because ofsuch multiplicity,it is possiblethat Indians have a greater fa-cility for languages.In any case, in today’s in-

creasingly globalised and com-

petitive world, more languagesmean greater edge. More re-cently,W ipro has been traininga number of its executives inJapanese because of its inter-ests there. Doubtless Infosyswill now bone up on Chinese —and not just C++.Indian kids,for that matter

children any where, have theability to absorb a number oflanguages when they areyoung. In fact, some Indianchildren in the US,especiallyin Texas, reveal remarkablerange — besides English andtheir native tongue,they alsopick up Spanish.There’s no reason why Indi-

ans can’t add a foreign lan-guage or two — particularlyother Asian languages — totheir repertoire.

Reuters

Britain’s Prince Harry, younger son of Prince Charles, standsnext to a bronze statue of Perseus holding the Gorgon’s headat Eton College. The 18-year-old prince, who is third in line tothe throne, is due to finish his studies at Eton College onThursday when he appears for his final exam.

Bling-bling,khazi enternew OxforddictionaryLondon: Khazi, minging,bling-bling? Not some crazy new di-alect, but standard British vo-cabulary,according to the latestedition of the Oxford EnglishDictionary,published Friday.The publishers said they

have added almost 6,000 neww ords and phrases that reflect21st century life,including thefrowner’s favourite,Botox, pas-sion-enhancing drug Viagraand sambuca, the aniseedliqueur served with a flamingcoffee bean.Among the 187,000 defini-

tions in the latest edition, pub-lished by Oxford UniversityPress, there is also bevvy,British slang for a beer;head-case,referring to a person whoexhibits irrational behavior;and bling-bling,a reference toelaborate jew ellery and cloth-ing,and the appreciation of it.Some of the new term s,in-

cluding cut-and-paste, screen-savers and search engines,re-flect the growing influence ofcomputers.And J R R Tolkien’s fictional

w orld in The Lord of the Ringsis also recognized. Orcs are de-fined as “members of an imagi-nary race of ugly, aggressivehuman-like creatures.”Getting down to basics,the

new dictionary now makes it allright to describe the khazi (toilet) as minging (disgust-ing). Reuters

ONLY INAMERICA!

Chidanand Rajghatta

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CMYK

I N T E R N A T I O N A L SU N DAY TIMES O F INDIA New Delhi, June 8, 2003 15AFP

POST CONFESSION: File photo shows US president Bill Clinton and wife Hillary dancing on thebeach of Megan Bay, Virgin Islands. A poll of New York voters finds them divided on the issueof why the former First Lady penned her soon-to-be released memoirs. Twenty-eight percentsaid the book was meant to lay groundwork for a future presidential run, while 27 percentbelieve her main motivation was to ‘‘tell her side of the story’’.

US may deport 13,000 MuslimsW ashington: More than 13,000 of theArab and Muslim men, w ho came for-w ard earlier this year to register withimmigration authorities in the US —roughly 16 per cent of the total — maynow face deportation.Only a handful have been linked to

terrorism. But of the 82,000 men whoregistered, more than 13,000 have beenfound to be living here illegally,officialssay.M a ny had hoped to win leniency by

demonstrating their willingness to co-operate with the campaign against ter-ror.How ever,officials believe that mostwill be expelled.The government has initiated depor-

tation proceedings,and an exodus hasalready begun.For decades,illegal immigrants have

often flourished because officials lackedthe staff,resources and political will todeport them. But since the attacks onthe W orld Trade Center and the Penta-gon, the government has been detainingand deporting illegal immigrants fro mcountries considered breeding grounds

for terrorists.A dvocates for immigrants warn that

such a strategy can be abused by gov-ernment officials.They cite a recent internal Justice

Department report that was deeply crit-ical of the government’s roundup of il-legal immigrants after September 11,2001. Senior officials were found to haverepeatedly ignored calls from immigra-tion officials to distinguish between theinnocent and guilty.A dvocates for immigrants have ac-

cused officials of practising selectiveenforcement by focusing on illegal im-migrants from Arab and Muslim na-tions.The new US immigration ruleshave also played havoc with students.Yahya Jalil, a Pakistani student, arrivedin the US to study electrical engineeringat Stanford University 11 years ago.‘‘There was a real sense that this was afree country with lots of personal free-doms,’’said the 29-year-old.But few know better how life in the

US has changed for Muslim immi-grants.In March, Jalil boarded a flightfor a job interview in Britain withoutrealising he was supposed to registerwith US immigration authorities beforeleaving the country.His oversight vio-lated a new Homeland Security policyaimed at tracking men from nationswith large Muslim populations whenthey enter and exit the US.W hen he tried to return to America at

the end of spring break, US officials de-clared him an ‘‘inadmissible’’alien. Be-cause of his expulsion, Jalil was unableto complete his course.Agencies

German peacekeepersattacked in Kabul, 4 dieK abul: A suspected suicidecar bomber blew up a buscarrying German peacekeep-ers in the Afghan capitalK abul on Saturday, killingfour soldiers and wounding29, seven of them seriously,officials said.The troops were on their

w ay to the airport to fly backto Germany after completingtheir Afghan assignments.W itnesses at the scene of

the blast said they saw themangled wreckage of the carcarrying the explosives andbloodstains and shards ofglass on the road.The charred shell of the

bus stood on the side of theroad where the force of theexplosion left it.German Defence Minister

Peter Struck said in Berlinthe death toll was four,onemore than originally report-ed by International SecurityAssistance Force (ISAF) offi-cers in Kabul. ISAF is led byGermany and the Nether-lands.The incident was the latest

in a string of attacks inAfghanistan aimed at US-ledcoalition forces,internation-al peacekeepers and aidagencies.Reuters

UN envoyfails in hisbid to meetSuu KyiYangon: A special UNenvoy failed Saturday tomeet or secure the re-lease of detained oppo-sition leader Aung SanSuu Kyi, despite a bar-rage of internationalcriticism of her deten-tion and threats oftighter economic sanc-tions against Myan-mar’s ruling junta bythe US.But envoy Razali Is-

mail, on the second dayof his five-day mission,said he was still ‘‘mak-ing his case’’to the gen-erals who detained SuuKyi in an unknown loca-tion following a bloodyclash in northern Myan-mar nine days ago.Razali met for more

than an hour with Gen.Khin Nyunt, M yan-mar’s intelligence chiefand third-rankingleader, as well as For-eign Ministry officialsand diplomats.‘‘I am still in the

process of making mycase,’’ Razali told re-porters when asked af-ter the meeting whetherhe would be allow ed tosee Suu Kyi.A coordinator for the

visit, Leon de Riedmat-ten, said the request tomeet with the opposi-tion leader was still be-ing considered. ‘‘At themoment, he will stay.Hewill not cut short hisvisit,’’he said. AP

Media doublespeak: Time to let the truth prevailA

tad incongruously for anewspaper,one of Britain’sbest-selling broadsheets

bears the new marketing legend:“Read a best-seller everyday”. Thereference is to sales figures,not thefictional quality of its content.It may yet prove an unfortunate

turn of phrase.At least now,w henthe world reads about the downfallof the venerable Gray Lady,the NewYork Times,for sins of inaccuracy,fabrication and omission. N ow too,w hen London’s feisty Guardian hasmanifestly got one of its more im-portant front-page clangers totallywrong,yet elected sneakily to burythat bad news out of sight.Just days ago,the Guardian w as

forced to apologise for a lead storyon Gulf W ar II. The report claimedexclusively to reveal Colin Pow elland Jack Straw’s “doubts” about thepretext for war.The paper said theymet in New York’s W aldorf Hotel onFebruary 5, before a crucial UN Se-

curity Council meeting.They weresaid to have been worried that intel-ligence inform ation did not fullysupport Bush and Blair’s extrava-gant claims about Saddam’sw eapons of mass destruction.So far, so belligerent. Liberal,

anti-war opinion felt marginallyvindicated. The evil American em-pire and its British vassal wereshown up as lying devils.God wasin his heaven. But all was not rightwith the world. The Guardian re-port was wrong.Straw was not even in New York

at the time he was said to be in theW aldorf Hotel. Hew as in France.Thatconversation neverhappened, at leastnot there and not onthe specified date.The Guardian w asdead wrong.As it acknowl-

edged, to its credit, five days later.But, w hat an acknowledgement. Insmall-print, as a small correction,on the editorial page inside,the pa-per accepted that its story was justthat — a made-up tale.And still itfound the heart to trumpet theN Y T’s downfall from a 150-year-old

position of editorial excellence!There is more than a whiff of

doublespeak in all of this.Consid-ering the Guardian front-paged itsoriginal report, surely its mea culpaalso deserved front-page billing? Here’s a touchy question: Do we

trust the W estern media more thanthey deserve? And how much more

do we trust our ow npress over and aboveits W estern counter-parts?Not a lot is the

short answ er. Onceupon a time, thatm ay have madesense because much

of the resources-hamstrung and/orintellectually lazy Indian mediaw orried little about accuracy.Butthe moral of the N Y T and Guardianbestsellers: w e raise them high atour own peril. Let truth prevail —after we’ve tested and found it to befact ourselves.

AP

New York Times managing editorGerald Boyd (left) and executiveeditor Howell Raines resignedThursday over a reporting scandal.

EUROVISION

Rashmee Z Ahmed

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•Selective enforcement? US accused of focussing on Arab and Muslims immigrants

•82,000 registered themselveswith immigration authorities

•13,000 of them found to be living illegally in the US

•They will almost definitely be deported

Tightening the screws

CMYK

A L L T H A T M A T T E R S16 SU N DAY TIMES O F INDIA New Delhi, June 8, 2003

Of all the pro-posals I haveheard to abolishpoverty,the sim-plest comesfrom a friend in an NGO.W hynot raise theminimum wagehigh enough

to put everybody above the povertyline? It sounds so simple,elegantand painless.

Alas,it will not work because ofthe law of unintended conse-quences.I was unaw are of this ir-ritating but relentless law in myown youth, w hen I was a woolly-minded liberal dreaming up in-stant fixes for poverty.It did not oc-cur to me that if eradicating pover-ty was so simple,it would surelyhave been done centuries ago.

The Emperor Tughlak triedsomething of the sort by decreeingthat silver was equal in value tocopper. He thought poor peopleholding copper coins would in-stantly become as rich as thosehaving silver. Instead rich busi-nessmen quickly submitted coppercoins to the treasury and demand-

ed silver in return. Soon the treas-ury was empty of silver,the richhad got richer and the poor were asbadly off as ever.Tughlak had notthought through the unintendedconsequences of his decree. Hefailed to realise that the fundamen-tal economic fact — that silver isrelatively scarce and copper rela-tively abundant — cannot bechanged by mere legislation.Consider a state where the

casual labour rate is Rs 30 per day,and casual employment aver-ages 150 days per year.A typicallabourer will earn Rs 4,500 per year,and be in poverty.N owimagine a benevolent chief minis-ter who seeks to abolish poverty bydoubling the minimum wage rateto Rs 60 a day,and enforcing this (a tough task). W ill the earnings ofw orkers double? Alas,no.If the price of anything

(including labour) rises, the de-mand for it will fall, other thingsbeing equal. If you double the wagerate,employers will sack workers,mechanise and automate produc-tion to reduce labour use.W orkersin high-productivity jobs may endup with higher pay.But many more

will lose their jobs.Casual workersm ay find the demand for theirlabour falling from 150 days a yearto maybe 70 days,in which casetheir annual earnings will actuallyfall even though their daily ratehas doubled.The longer term effects will be

w orse.Employers will stop invest-ing in the high-wage state and

shift to other states with low erw age rates,with disastrous long-term effects.So,a well-intentioned aim to abolish poverty may actually worsen it.

If you doubt this,just look at theexample of Kerala. Historically,itsought to be pro-poor and pro-labour in the most aggressive fash-ion. It had the most extensive land

reform s. It encouraged tradeunions even at the rural level, andabetted curbs by unions to increaseemployment (such as forbiddingpeople to pick up their own suit-cases at railw ay stations). Ruralw ages were jacked up to the high-est levels in India. This was sup-posed to abolish poverty.Alas,the law of unintended con-

sequences came into play.Farmersfaced with rising wage bills shiftedfrom labour-intensive crops likerice to plantation crops (like co-conuts) that use very little labour.All innovation went into ways ofreducing labour use. Industriesstopped investing in the state.Traditionally, Kerala employed

thousands of people in processingcashew and coir.But high wages in-duced a migration of factories andjobs to Tamil Nadu, w here wagesw ere far low er.Kerala made it ille-gal to move produce across thestate border.Like most laws defy-ing economic realities,this did notw ork: vast quantities were smug-gled into Tamil Nadu. Jobs and factories shifted out.

W orse,high wages in Kerala in-duced a large influx of Tamillabour,ready to work for less.This

further reduced the employmentpotential for locals.Thus well-intentioned policies

aimed at reducing poverty createdeconomic stagnation. TalentedKeralites migrated to other states,and later to the Gulf,for employ-ment. This converted Kerala to apostal order economy, dependenton remittances from emigrants.Re-mittances total Rs 15,000 crore ayear,and ward offpoverty.But thisis not the way pro-labour policiesw ere supposed to reduce poverty.

Kerala has the highest literacyand low est infant mortality in In-dia. Such fabulous social indica-tors give it the potential to becomean Asian tiger.In fact it is an Asianturtle.If you wish to understandw hy you cannot simply legislateaw ay poverty,study Kerala.Some readers will ask, how have

Europeans and Americans raisedw ages without suffering adverseconsequences? The answ er lies inrising productivity.If the produc-tivity of labour goes up,employerscan pay more and yet remain com-petitive.The key to reducing pover-ty lies in raising productivity.That will raise wages sustainably.Legislation will not.

You cannot legislate away povertyS WA M I N O M I C SSwaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar

Excuse me,madam senator,but isn’t it abit late in the day to be snarling at theluscious Lewinsky? Instead of w eepingin print (for a big, fat, juicy fee of$8 million), perhaps Hillary Clintonw ould have endeared herself a littlemore to women the world over had shetaken a stand with her philanderinghusband at the time of the scandal.But that wouldn’t have got her the

big bucks.So,she played the stoical wife instead. Fairenough. Had she decided to close that sordid chapter then,nobody would’ve commented. After all, as we Hindustanisoften say,‘‘Miya-bibi ka mamla tha.’’For the former first lady to rake it all up in her new mem-

oir Living History,smacks of cheesy sensationalism. Goodfor sales,sure (the unpublished book is already numbertwo on best-seller lists), but what about Chelsea? Going bythe excerpts (frankly,disappointing), one understands thatM rs Clinton’s only reason for ‘‘staying by her man’’w as tospare her young daughter the agony and embarrassmentof having to deal with warring parents,besides copingwith all the muck-raking in the media. A noble intention.Most mothers of teenage children caught in a similar im-broglio would do the same.So what’s the big difference now? I’d say it’s the royalty

cheque.Chelsea is still a fairly young person. In fact, ifanything,Chelsea is at an even more vulnerable point inher life.Surely,it can’t be much fun reading about what acad her dad was,especially not when the person callinghim that is the mother.M rs Clinton claims staying married to the post-Monica

Clinton was one of the most difficult decisions of her life.I’d say it was perhaps the shrew dest. Hillary won countlessbrownie points for gritting her teeth and staying put. I ampretty certain her personal agenda had already been fi-nalised at that point. She was going to run for senator (thesecond most difficult decision, according to her). I believeboth decisions were interlinked. And perhaps,the cannyClintons did a deal (she stays put, he completes his term;she runs for the senate,he stays put). Makes sense.So,w hyin hell is this tough, calculating woman babbling now? Sheclaims she was the last to know (just like countless dumbheroines of long-running soap operas). She also claims shebelieved ‘‘her man’’w hen he denied the initial reports.W ell then, M rs Clinton must be one hell of a naive chick.Given his track-record (and hers!), it isn’t possible that shelived in ignorance through all his dalliances.The truthm ay be worse — she chose to ignore them all. Because theperks of her husband’s job were too good to pass up.W e might have admired her a little more,had she admit-

ted as much. A woman needs a life,too.But, no.Hillary dis-appointingly enough picked a predictable route — she de-cided to tell all. Alas,even the prose is pedestrian. Shesounds like any whimpering,bleating martyred wife whenshe writes about her inability to breathe when Billy-boy fi-nally decided to confess.M rs Clinton ‘‘gulped for air’’and‘‘started crying’’. The president according to his wife,hunghis head in shame and kept saying,‘‘I’m sorry.’’Boo hoo.The prose gets progressively smarm y.M rs Clinton re-

calls being ‘‘dumbfounded, heartbroken and outraged....’’Oh puh-leeze spare us,honey.The reason Hillary stuckaround with the heel is all too obvious to anybody — her-self.I guess,it’s payback time now.It’s Bill Clinton’s turnto maintain a stoic silence,grit his teeth and bear it. It’sChelsea I’m worried about. M aybe,she’ll finish her moth-er’s stated unfinished job of wringing Clinton’s neck. Andw hile she’s at it, she might wring her mother’s too.Unless,she’s smarter and signs up for an even juicier book deal ofher own. Only then, will we get the real version of how amisplaced cigar brought the president down.

Hill-arious

P O L I T I C A L LY I N C O R R E C TShobhaa De

It’s inexplicable,w hy people do it. If youlive in Delhi you know,sure as eggs iseggs,that come summer it’s going to gethot. It’s an inescapable fact of life.Likefire burns.Or that a circle is round andnot square.Or that all birds fly,exceptkiwis,w hich in any case aren’t birdsbut a cricket team. Or that one o’clockin the afternoon, at a specific place andat a specific point in time,is alw ays and

invariably one o’clock in the afternoon. If,at one o’clock inthe afternoon, every day,on the dot, you were to start ha-ranguing people,telling them, W ill you look at that? W illyou look at that? It’s one o’clock in the afternoon! Can youimagine that? Hoodibabaa! Next stop,padded cell.Yet come summer in Delhi, it’s considered not just nor-

mal but de rigueur for people to tell each other how hot itis,how hot you feel, how hot you will feel the next day,andso on, and on. Everyone has their own hot yarn to spin, onthe principle of different heat strokes for different folks.And I admit to being as guilty as anyone else.W hat was the max temperature yesterday? I ask Bunny

w ho’s reading the morning paper.W hy do you want toknow yesterday’s temperature? asks Bunny.So that I’llknow for sure if yesterday I felt as hot as I ought to have,or if I should have felt hotter, I reply, like a Joan ofArc in drag aw aiting martyrdom via spontaneous combustion. Yesterday’s max was 41.3 Celsius, obliges Bunny.W hat’s that in Fahrenheit? I ask. They don’t doFahrenheit, says Bunny.Not do Fahrenheit? How can they not do Fahrenheit?

How dare they not give me the courtesy of choice of de-ciding which I feel hotter in, C or F? I’ll take it up withCommon Cause.Or should it be the Minorities Commis-sion? Hell with it. I’ll take it up with both.Stop grizzlingand let me look at today’s forecast so we’ll know how hot itis that we’re meant to feel today,never mind yesterday,in Cor in F,says Bunny.I must confess that barring the minor glitch of not doing

Fahrenheit, the papers do everything possible to ensurethat you can suck the maximum masochism out of sum-mer,like juice out of a sun-ripened choosna mango.Invita-tion pricing gives way to invitation panicking as papers viewith each other to see who can come up with the more hor-rific summer story with which to scare the living bejesusout of you. If one paper describes it as a ‘scorcher’ of a day,the other responds with ‘sizzler’. Subs scour dictionariesfor adjectives beginning with ‘s’ to evoke the onomatopoe-ic sibilance of fat spluttering on a taw a,sw eat sliding dow nsticky skin stinging with the sandpaper rasp of pricklyheat, the sw oosh of tires squelching over smolten streets.Iraq? W hither the UN? W hither Mandira Bedi? Forget it. Ifit’s not about heat, it’s offthe beat. Bury it. On page 5. Be-low Municipal Tenders.But even heat needs help to get people het up enough

about it. And papers provide it with horror stories aboutpow er and water shortages.Delhi’s pow er shortage thissummer will be 800 MW,its water shortage 390 MGD.Thisgets everyone even more hot and bothered than they al-ready were,not least because no one knows what the blazesall those initials mean. O y,calls out the news editor to thechief photographer.W here’s that front page picture wecarry every summer showing little naked urchins jumpinginto ponds? he asks.All gone,replies the photographer.The little naked urchins? asks the news editor.N o,says thephotographer.Those little sods are still hanging aroundw aiting for us to shoot them. It’s the ponds.Evaporated.The whole lot. Like the bijli.Perhaps that’s why everyone talks about the heat. To

send a small shiver of dread up one’s spine.W hich is theonly coolth you’re likely to feel all summer.

Garma garam

J U G U L A R V E I NJug Suraiya

Cyber affairs: Harmless fun or infidelity? I think infi-delity isa b o u tbreach oftrust andm y sensibil-ities don’tagree withsuch a rela-tionship. Idon’t wantto sound

judgmental about either thenet or about infidelity.If youare having a relationship

with someone and technolo-gy helps you to strengthen itfurther,great. But I believethat the basis of most net af-fairs is lies.It could involvelying to your real partner oryour virtual one.Either wayit’s a breach of trust.Such affairs are damaging

to the integrity of a relation-ship,as they involve fantasy,secrecy and ultimately,denial. Imagine,on the onehand you’re chatting aw aywith your parents, and on the other — maybe an hourlater — you are indulging in explicit talk on the net! It certainly damages the intimacy and integrity of areal life relationship and I’m sure it has long-termrepercussions.M aybe this generation

has become so de-sensitisedthat for them, it’s okay to have cyber romances.Everything is shock-proof.W e are constantly being bom-barded by technology so thattoday’s news is tomorrow’sleftover.But one thing is cer-tain: suspicion of infidelitycan seriously damage trustin a relationship.

I would even call cyber affairs a betrayal of the self.A nything that obstructsm y honesty to myself is bad news.And you have to be honest with yourself to be true to any relationship.A cyber relationship is built largely on fantasy —

not on reality.It’s like SMS-ing. Some-

times you find a person on SMS so interesting, butw hen you meet him/her,theyare not what you quite imag-ined. So why give in to romancing an image youknow is not true? Least ofall, an electronic gizmow hich might damage a realrelationship?And there are no two ways

about it, cyber romance iscertainly going aw ay fro mthe natural course,w hich ismeeting people face to face.Itis conducted in isolation. Innormal life, our relation-ships are more action-reac-tion oriented.Personally,I need to feel a

tactile presence.Romancinga faceless individual does notappeal to me.It’s illusionary.But, the emotions expendedare real. So,there is certainlya conflict here.Look at our parents’ gener-

ation. They had normal lives, normal yearnings.They didn’t need to get theirthrills from a cyber chat.Love was not a four letterw ord then.

Today, 92 million adultsw orldwide are on the Inter-net and women comprisenearly 50 per cent of users —or so I’ve read. The opportu-nity is immense. But it’s agenre that would never ap-peal to me.(As told to Jitesh Pillai)

N o, a cyberaffair doesnot amountto infidelity.Those whobelieve itdoes need tounderstandw hat it en-tails.The re-lationship isbuilt over

the net, through chatrooms,messenger matches or the e-mail. Occasional or even reg-ular chat with the oppositesex — whatever be the objec-tive,and the content — does-n’t mean an act of unfaithful-ness to one’s partner.Yes,itcould lead to infidelity,butw hy blame the internet formen and women going in forextra-marital relations? Thebond could well have beensealed through personal con-tact — in the suburban train,or the college/office canteen.

Modern-day telecommuni-cations have revolutionisedthe way we interact. The ‘e’no longer prefixes the wordmail in electronic mail, in-stead you add a ‘snail’ beforemail for your conventionalpostal letter.Phones allowfor real-time voice chat butare expensive.On the inter-net though, access and te-lephony charges make for avery cheap real-time chat.The web also affords anon-ymity.You could pose as mewithout any fear of verifica-

tion or a reprimand for im-personation. Thus, costs,ease of use and anonymity,have led to a virtual free-for-all on the internet. Govern-ments may try to police cy-berspace, but privacy ac-tivists ensure that they needto dole out little inform ationto regulators.Given this context, it must

be appreciated that a largenumber of users have ex-ploited the opportunity tovent out sentiments other-wise locked up in the closet.Interestingly,one of the mostpopular theme rooms on in-ternet chat platforms is ‘Mar-ried and Looking’. W hy menand women throng theserooms is possibly a questionfor a psychoanalyst. Proba-bly they aren’t happy enoughwith their partner,or even ifthey are, w ouldn’t mindsomething going on the side.So, do cyber affairs

amount to infidelity? I wouldgo a step further and say thatw hile cyber affairs do notmean adultery, the conven-tional real world romantic re-lationships are quite defi-nitely an act of betrayal. Cy-ber affairs are virtual andmake-believe,you could wellbe getting into a relationshipwith a man feigning to be aw oman or vice versa. Oftenyou find that people who areexcellent with written com-m unication speak an awfulbody language.How ever,in

the real world, you know theperson you are involved with.W ith voice chats and web-cams,there is a bit of look-and-hear, but it still isn’tflesh-and-blood.One reads several research

reports talking of marriagebreak-ups thanks to the net.Yes, the numbers haveleapfrogged. But the net andthe mobile are mere facilita-tors. If one gets hooked,there’s got to be somethingwrong elsew here.

S U N DAY D E B AT E

Vol. 14 No. 23 : Air charge: Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai ,Cochin, Chennai & via Rs.3, Indore and via 50 paise. National edition: No aircharge.Price in Nepal: NEP Rs 5, except Sunday: NEP Rs 7. RNI No. 50787/90 MADE IN NEW DELHI REGD. NO. DL-25001/92. Published for the proprietors, Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd., by Balraj Arora at Times House, 7, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi - 110 002, and printed by him at13, Site IV Industrial Area, Sahibabad (UP), MNS Printers Pvt. Ltd., Industrial Area, Phase II, Panchkula, Haryana - 134109 and Vasundhara Printers Ltd., Tiwari Ganj, Faizabad Road, Chinhat, Lucknow. Regd. Office: Dr Dadabhai Naoroji Road, Mumbai - 400 001. Editor (Delhi Market): Bachi Karkaria-responsible for selection of news under PRB Act. Executive Editor: Shekhar Bhatia. © All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission of the publisher is prohibited. Postal Registration No.: TN/Chief PMG/399/2002

Deepak Harichandan

PA S S I N G T H O U G H T

May be I neglected my research on tooth decay, Sir.But you must admit I discovered the most artistic spider in the world!

Tw o days in Islam-abad is hardly timeenough to gauge allone wants to knowabout Pakistan butdoes not dare ask. Yet,because I attended atruly enlighteningseminar at which sev-eral distinguished

Pakistani scholars spoke with brutalfrankness about the internal situation inPakistan, and had a long chat with Khur-shid Mehmood Kasuri, m y decades-oldCambridge college class-mate,now some-w hat startlingly elevated to foreign min-ister of his country, and worked thephones to speak to friends all over Pak-istan, I think I can claim with confidencethat the desire for a settlement with Indiais widespread, sincere,and even ardent.Feed-back I have received to my partici-pation, along with two Pakistani MPs(known in Pakistan as MNAs), in a T Vpanel discussion hosted by Pakistan’sPrannoy Roy,Hamid Mir,reinforces this.

The prevailing military regime with acivilian facade is the optimal combina-tion for us to strike a deal with. The Indi-an illusion needs to be buried once for all:that a democratic government, as we un-derstand it, can ever be conjured into ex-

istence in Pakistan. The arm y is thelargest political party by far and it hasconquered the only country it is capableof conquering — its own. So,w hether it isbehind the scenes or centre-stage,it is thearm y which controls the polity.Yet, as a perceptive Pakistani partici-

pants in the seminar pointed out, the Pak-istan arm y is perhaps the only politicisedarm y in the world which is desperate forconstitutional cover.Not satisfied withauthority alone,it seeks legitimacy —first, under the constitution and valida-tion through the courts; second, throughassociation with comprador political par-ties; and, third, co-option of the urbanmiddle-class,w hich is ‘‘socially progres-sive but politically conservative’’becauseit dislikes and distrusts the largely feudaland unrepresentative political classdrawn substantively from rural Pakistan.To this we must add the attempt todemonstrate to the people of Pakistanthat a military dictator can do businesswith India — the ultimate insignia ofstatesmanship and, therefore,legitimacy.The Musharraf-Jamali regime is thus theright combination for hammering out asettlement that can be ‘‘sold’’in Pakistanand prove relatively durable.Yet, that is where the good news ends.

For the Pakistani establishment seems as

clueless as our own as to where we gofrom here.This might be just as well, be-cause instead of being trapped in mind-sets we could begin afresh on a cleanslate.The need now is not for the mean-ingless reiteration of conditionalitiesw hich the Pakistanis will neither fulfilnor can be enforced on them by India, theUS or both, but for talks about talksaimed at so structuring the substantivedialogue as to make it, as and when ittakes off, both uninterrupted and uninterruptible. Joint Secretary-leveldiscussions, spun out over several sessions,and commencing after the twonew high commissioners are in place,isthe present imperative.

W e have in New Delhi a lame duck gov-ernment that is sentencing itself to anearly election. The structuring of an un-interrupted and uninterruptible dia-logue is thus likely to coincide with theinstallation of a post-election Govern-ment of India. This would place the nextgovernment in an ideal ‘‘early days’’mode to conclude a historical ‘‘final set-tlement’’with our distant neighbour,asenvisaged in the Simla Agreement of1972. It is only if the albatross of India-Pakistan relations is cut from our collec-tive necks that India can assume its de-served place in the comity of nations.

Net chatting is just a way to release feelings locked up in the closet.

I should have deliveredan overdue dhansak untoJug, m y friend of 40years.Instead there I wasstirring up a Parsi delica-cy for total strangers.O nevery grain is written thename of the person whowill get its heartburn.The suave N K Singh

had invited me to my first encounter withthe Delhi pow er circuit. I hadn’t had time tochange,and almost chickened out, fearing itmight be high treason to venture into thistwice-born conclave in my daylong crumple.But I took the plunge,and stepped onto thePlanning commissar’s scented lawn.Next began a series of coincidences

w hich turned me into the Great Pickling Im-poster. Shashi V of ITC happened to bestanding near the entrance.She also hap-pened to be standing with Meenakshi Datta

Ghosh, w hom I’d happened to meet at anAIDS conference in Barcelona; she’d justbeen made director of N AC O,I’d just re-turned to the beat after an eight-year lapse.Shashi happened to look my way as I madem y entry,and asked Meenakshi if I was me.She came over,and her second sentence

w as,‘‘Can you make bafenu?’’I wondered ifthis was the standard opening gambit at Dil-li parties. But Shashi had unwittinglypressed the right button. If she’d merelysaid, ‘‘Are you bearing up to our weather?’’Iw ould have given a desultory reply, andm oved on like a passing canape.To me,bafenu is the mother of all achars,

aw esome in its simplicity and unique.In thevast pantheon of pickles,it is perhaps theonly one made from the whole,ripe mango.So,to Shashi’s query,I replied, ‘‘I can,’’withall the spurious humility of a ‘Yes Minister’.How was I to know that I would be expectedto deliver in a Delhi far aw ay from its essen-

tial ingredients?I had reckoned without Corporate Com-

m unications women. They are a persistentbreed. Shashi, in addition, w as Punjabi. Tw ow eeks later, she called: ‘‘The alphonososhave arrived from Mumbai. So have the spe-cial ground mustard, the khambati samb-haar,the Kolah’s (Established 1925) cane-vinegar.The gur is local, I hope that’s allright.’’How could I back out?I was led grandly into the Maurya

kitchen. Chef Parul stood at the ready,and even the Head Handi,Sultan Mohideen,w as present. Like glistening accoutre-ments of battle,w ere arrayed the platter of steamed-as-instructed mangoes, thepalette of pow dered spices,even the tradi-tional plump glass jar.W ith the ceremonial snipping of the pack-

et of vinegar, the ritual commenced. Ipoured the dark brown liquid on the bed ofpale mustard like a libation, sprinkled the

grated gur like incense, and performed the first token beating of the mixture.Then Parul took over, expertly wield-ing the whisk.The mustard, titillated by the vinegar,

rose to an edginess that seared the sinuses.Isniffed it like a sommelier, and finally declared it right. Then came the last act:sensuously coating each steamed-to-a-wrinkle mango with the paste, and gently depositing it in the jar.The remain-ing mixture was poured in. The stopperedcontainer was borne to a cool, dark cabinet.The mangoes would silently soak in thesharpness.The bafenu w ould be ready intwo weeks.Ambrosia — I hope.Else,reputa-tion pickled, I might have to slink aw ay fro mDelhi in disgrace.

★★★Alec Smart said, ‘‘ Why did George Bushdrink only bottled water at the G8 sum-mit? Because it was at Evian.’’

Get into a pickle and make it too E R R AT I C ABachi Karkaria

Vijay Mukhi Internet guru

Any relationship, virtual or real, based on lies would amount to infidelity.

TabuActress

G U E S T C O L U M NMani Shankar Aiyar Forty eight hours in Pakistan

Kerala has the highest literacy and lowest infantmortality in India. Suchfabulous social indicatorsgive it the potential to become an Asian tiger. Infact it is an Asian turtle.

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You can’t see them! You can’t touch them! Butyou sure can feel them! Unless,of course,you have them buried under layers and lay-ers of protection — whether those layersare physical as in layers of extra flesh, oremotional as in standoffish walls that pro-

claim to the people around you, ‘don’t get too close.’M a ny of us have been holding back and storing un-

felt emotions.W hat’s the purpose? Unfortunately,thereason behind suppressed emotions is self-defeating.Holding back from feeling your feelings is usuallyhow we try to protect ourselves from being hurt.How ever, the resistance to feeling your emotionsw hen they arise is what really causes pain.Unfelt and unexpressed emotions manifest in

many ways.They may be felt only on a discomfort

level, as if something is wrong and you don’t knoww hat it is.Sometimes its even hard to pinpoint whatexactly is the cause of your disease or discomfort.M aybe it’s a feeling of dissatisfaction with yourself,with your life,with others around you. Sometimesit’s a feeling of anger or disappointment that doesn’tseem to have a cause.Yet, if you stop and questionyourself as to the cause of your confusion, the truthwill come to the surface.There is alw ays a cause forour feelings — it’s just that many times we have hid-den it from ourselves as well as from others.

So the first question is to ask yourself is ‘What amI feeling?’ The typical repressed answ er is ‘I don’tknow’. Just walk past that hurdle by asking anotherquestion: ‘What feelings am I not expressing?’ If thatstill draws a blank, then ask yourself ‘If I knew whatI was feeling,w hat would I say it is?’ W hat is your an-sw er? Usually that will bring up some type of respo-nse... Is it sadness,anger,fear? W hat answ er do youget to the question? It may be more than one thing...you may have many layers of levels of feelings asso-

ciated with your present state of mind or moon.Once you have uncovered the emotions that you’ve

been keeping in storage or repressing,look at them.You don’t need to analyse and criticise.Don’t judgeyourself,blame yourself,or tell yourself that you ‘sh-ouldn’t’ feel that way.Only look at them, and tell th-em (the feelings) and tell yourself that it is okay tofeel this way.Then, let yourself feel your anger,yoursadness,your fear.Really feel it! Go ahead and cry,orbeat your pillow... w hatever you feel to do.The repressed emotions need to come out so they

stop poisoning you and your life.An example of howrepressed stuffstill affects you: Imagine that you areallergic to something.So you push the ‘something’under the bed so you can’t see it. W ell, will that helpany at all? Of course not — you’ll still be allergic,and

even if you can’t see the ‘something’, yourallergies will still be stimulated. Thesame goes with repressed emotions.Justbecause you have stuffed them ‘under thebed’, doesn’t mean they don’t affect you.They do,and the solution to your prob-lems can be identified even though you’vehidden or buried or repressed the cause.The body, especially once you have

made the decision to heal yourself,will al-w ays seek to become healthy and whole.W hen energies are building up inside ofyou, somew hat like a volcanoes pow erfulgases,your body will do everything in itspow er to get rid of the poison. It is betterfor you, as well as for the people aroundyou, w hen you clear and release youremotions without dumping on others.Those old feelings have nothing to do withpeople around you any way.They are yourstuff.It is surely better for you to releaseyour pent-up emotions in this way thanpicking a scapegoat to bear the brunt ofthat energy,or repressing the emotionsinside and creating physical problems foryourself.Tell yourself often that it is okay and

safe to be a feeling human being.M a nytimes in our upbringing,w e were told notto show our anger,not to show our sad-ness or fears. So consequently, w e be-haved and poisoned ourselves by repress-ing those reactions to our daily life.Take time to be with yourself,especial-

ly when you feel slightly low,and talkto yourself.Ask yourself w hat it is that you’re notexpressing, w hat you are not feeling... and thengo into those feelings.Feel them. Feeling them willfree you to go on your way unburdened by the chainsof emotion that were binding you to your past.Don’t be afraid that you are unlocking the

door of the damand that you willbe washed aw ayby a flood of emo-tions.

Free yourself.Feelyour inner child cry-ing out for your at-tention and yourlove. Allow yourselfto be human. Giveyourself permissionto feel. Be real! Youm ay be surprised...you’ll like it!

CMYK

I A M

There is no shortcutto success,saysSunil Bharti Mittal

Icome from a family of believers —though my father was was an Arya

Samaji, m y mother was the one whow as alw ays involved with rituals andpoojas.I am not a very ritualistic per-son, but I make it a point to attendthose poojas w hich the family per-form s.I do not believe in fasting andam certainly not superstitious. I don’trecall visiting any particular placeof w orship, but the temple at homeis one place where I bow my headevery morning.W hen it comes to places of w orship,

there’s no single place I can pin-point. Ivisit Vaishno Devi, I’ve been goingthere for many years.I believe in theblessings of Tirupathi Balaji, anotherplace I visit often but I also go tomosques and churches,I am very flexi-ble in my religious beliefs I am very in-formal about my faith.Besides religious values and beliefs,

it is importance of family and familyvalues which have been strongly incul-cated in me.I come from a family wherecredibility and integrity of characterare given top most importance. I’vebeen taught to stick to my word and liveup to my commitments.I have beentaught to respect and value money.Charity has been a way of life.I have been brought up with the be-

lief that there’s no shortcut to successand nothing can replace hard work. Ul-timately,it is one’s efforts that pay off.A nyone who works with efficiencyand a good, clean heart, will alw ays besuccessful.Today,I lead a very hectic life and I do

get stressed at times,but I never giveup.I have learnt how to meditate andpractise it as and when possible.Medi-atation cleanses my soul and helps meget rid of accumulated stress.Anotherw ay I curb stress is through exercise.Itry and stay as active as possible andkeeping in good shape helps me per-form better.I work out for an hour atleast 3-4 times a week.

(As told to Divya Vasisht)

Neelabh

M I N D O V E R M A T T E R SU N DAY TIMES O F INDIA New Delhi, June 8, 2003 17

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Ten-Minute Stress Relief— Erica BrealeyPrice : Rs 798 Ten-Minute Stress Reliefoffers a variety of simpleyet highly effective relax-ation techniques.You willdiscover how to calm your

mind with ten-minute meditations; de-str-ess at your desk with yoga-based exercisesequences; zoom in on the tension hotspots— eyes,head, shoulders and back; breatheaw ay tension; get your life in balance; andm uch more.The book begins with a dis-cussion of the physiological reactions thatw e recognise as stress and the early warn-ing signs that you need to look out for.De-signed to fit around the working day — nom atter how hectic your schedule — the ex-ercises will rapidly refresh you.

An ExcerptMeditation has been practised for thou-sands of years by those searching for spir-itual enlightenment, but one of the mainreasons for its popularity today is that a proven side-effect is a marked improve-ment in both mental and physical health.Above all it is an effective antidote tostress.Dubbed the relaxation response,medita-

tion has been found to stem the flow ofstress hormones and produce a responsethat is the reverse of the fight-fight, orstress,response.Regular meditation is ac-companied by a significant decrease inheart rate,low ering of blood pressure,acalming of the nervous system and an im-provement in all kinds of stress-relateddisorders such as depression, migraineand insomnia.

Any fool can criticise, condemn, and complain— and most fools do.

— Dale Carnegie◆

Love is a decision, not an emotion, that if madefrom the heart will outlast anything.

— Raul Juarez◆

Sometimes silence has the loudest voice.— Unknown

◆A fool in love makes no sense to me. I only

think you are a fool if you do not love.— Sigmund Freud

◆Courage isn’t having the strength to go on — itis going on when you don’t have the strength.

— Napoleon Bonaparte◆

A pessimist is somebody who complains aboutthe noise when opportunity knocks.

— Oscar Wilde◆

It’s impossible to really understand somebody,what they want, what they believe, and not love

them the way they love themselves.— Ender’s Game

Breathe your blues away!

Hold your breath... and keep it that way.W elcome to the world of Pranayam, abreathing practice in Yoga. Pranaya m

is particularly useful and often recommend-ed to the new meditator.It helps tremen-dously to control one’s breathing, andthrough that, one’s mind, and then body.The action of breath is in reality the proc-

ess of life.It is a mode of breath restraintand comprised of the processof inhaling the breath(poorak), stopping it (kumb-hak), and exhaling (rechak).The main object of Pran-ayam is to acquire mastery ofthe vital forces acting withinthe body.It helps to ensurethe arousal and liberation ofthe latent psychic energy inthe organism. W ith the helpof Pranayam, w e can trans-

form cosmic energy into human energy,thus maintaining the equilibrium of theforce within the body.The energy to work isenhanced.Pranayam works better if you practice

it regularly. It is strongly recommendedto do Pranayam before meditation, butafter asanas. The result will help youbreathe easy.

Get Those Emotions in MotionLet yourself feel your anger,your sadness,your fear,says motivational author Deepak Chopra

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opera, the last song sung by thesoprano (usually a stout lady)m ay have given rise to the aboveexpression. The expression indi-cates that no event is deemed to beover until the final result is outw hich is most important.

— danabi, recd via emailWhy are fish plates on a railwaytrack called so?A fish plate is a metal or woodenplate that is bolted to the sides atthe ends of two rails or beams,tojoin them. A fish plate does nothave anything in common withthe aquatic fish. The fish in thisterm is derived from the Frenchw ord ‘fiche’, meaning a peg.‘Fiche’, in turn, is derivedfrom the old French word ‘fichier’,

w hich means to fasten. Thus a fishplate means a plate that fastens.

— V.Venkata Rao,AhmedabadWhat is Google dance is allabout?The Internet search engine Googlehas a very huge database on vari-ous Internet data centres.Everymonth Google updates / re-index-es its database.Due to the size,itcannot simultaneously post a newindex at all the data centres.If youhappen to enter the same query re-peatedly while Google is in theprocess of posting the index atvarious data centres, it mightseem like the results are inconsis-tent. W hat’s actually happening isthat you are seeing a result fro man ‘old’ version of index once and

a result from a ‘new’ versionthe next for a short period oftime.Different search results indifferent Google search indices(google.com, www2.google.com,www3.google.com) is called Googledance.

— Nikhil Jain, New Delhi

— Sonya Puri

Why do pages of old books turnyellow as time goes by?— Pradhuman Rana, recdvia emailHow does coloured gel toothpasteturn white on brushing?— Haresh Bhagia, recd via emailWhat is white noise?

— Dipti Ranjan Gantayat,Bhubanesw ar

In commercial aircraft, why arecabin lights switched off duringlanding and take-off at night?— Prasad Phansalkar,Pune

Why is a ‘zero bulb’ called soeven though it consumes around10 watts or so?— Y.N.Murthy,recd via email

What is ‘fool’s gold’?— Mayank Bhardw aj, recdvia email

CMYK

O P E N S P A C E18 SU N DAY TIMES O F INDIA New Delhi, June 8, 2003

What is TRP and how it iscalculated?Television Rating Point (TRP) is atool provided to judge which pro-grammes are view ed the most.This gives us an index of thechoice of the people and also thepopularity of a particular chan-nel. For calculation purpose,a de-vice is attached to the TV set in afew thousand view ers’ houses forjudging purpose.These numbersare treated as sample from theoverall TV owners in different ge-ographical and demographic sec-tors.The device is called as Peo-ple’s Meter.It records the time andthe programme that a view erw atches on a particular day.Then,the average is taken for a 30-dayperiod which gives the view ershipstatus for a particular channel.

— Rahul S.Kunzarkar,MumbaiWhat is the difference between acorvette and a frigate?A corvette is a very small class ofcombat ship,often the smallest inany fleet. These ships have limitedrange and weapon systems, butthey are quite effective at trackingdown and hence primarily used bynaval police to patrol the sea andalso for close defence of a largership. Frigates are larger thancorvettes and have a fair mix of of-fensive and defence capabilities.These are also used for patrol mis-sions and to escort larger ships.

— S.P.S.Jain, MumbaiWhat’s the origin of the term‘veto’?The word veto comes from theLatin word meaning ‘I forbid’ andthe French word ‘vetare’ meaning‘to forbid’. A veto is the right of anexecutive to forbid or withhold as-sent to acts passed by a law-mak-ing body.In the older nations ofEurope, the monarch had anabsolute veto,that is by refusingassent, the ruler could preventacts of the legislature from takingeffect. This right still exists insome constitutional monarchies.The president of USA enjoys thisunique pow er.

— A. N atarajan, Katpadi What’s the origin of the expression‘It ain’t over till the fat lady sings’?During the 1930s and 1940s, therendition of Irving Berlin’s ‘Godbless America’ by Kate Smith, w how as a very popular fat Americansinger,brought the curtains dow non sports events like baseball, po-litical ceremonies, etc. Also in

LETTERS

e4It's well known that in anygroup of at least 23 people,the odds are greater than 50per cent that at least two ofthem would have the samebirthday. So there was thisprofessor teaching elementaryprobability theory to an under-grad math class when he tellsthem that with 30 people in-stead of 23, the odds wouldbecome much higher. “But,”he says, “since there are only19 students in this class, theodds are much less than 50percent that any two of youhave the same birthday.” Atthis point one of the studentsraises his hand and goes: “I'llbet you that at least two of ushere have the same birthday.”

“Okay doke,” says the proand promptly proceeds to callon the students one by one toannounce their birthdays until,about halfway through, boththe students and the professorlook at each other and bothslowly realise he shouldn'thave taken the bet. Why not?(Incidentally, the student mak-ing the bet didn't know anyoneelse's birth date.)

DEAR MS,Red-C-Blues-Dept:

Here's the solution to ‘How ToCO2’. Tricky, but was quiteeasy. Light has the same ef-fect on red as well as bluecolour. When the word ‘CAR-BON DIOXIDE’ is seen throughthe stem of the glass, both thewords are inverted but all thealphabets in DIOXIDE remainas they are when inverted;therefore it seems that blueletters are not inverted.— Sonika,i_sona99@yahoo.co.in

Found the question and theways you were trying to leadthe readers astray, interest-ing. The reflection has gotnothing to do with the colours.Write DIOXIDE in whatevercolour you like and it gets re-flected just the same becauseall the letters in the word havesymmetry about the horizontalaxis. Any other word formedfrom the letters B, C, D, E, H, I,K, O and X will have the sameproperty. A few examples areOHIO, CHOICE, etc.

— Rohit Raj,pschool@gm.co.in

Second-Time-Lucky-Dept:

Re: Colouring the cubeproblem. The player playingsecond always wins. The win-ning strategy is this: supposeplayer 1 colours face A withcolour B, then player 2 usesthe same colour B to colourthe face C, where C is an faceparallel to face A and has aface common with A.

To prove this, I just have toprove that whatever face play-er 1 colours at any stage inthe game, there will always bea face present parallel to thatface, which is uncoloured andwhich can be coloured by thatsame colour. This is easilyachieved.

Firstly, since player 2 alwayspaints a face parallel to player1's face, even for the lastmove, there will always be anuncoloured face available forplayer 2, parallel to player 1'slast move. Each face has twoother faces which meet it ata vertex.

As player 1 was able tomake a move, the other twofaces are either uncoloured orhave a different colour. Thenconsidering the faces thesefaces meet at common ver-tices, and so on, we are ableto establish that even in theworst case scenario (only oneface remaining), the face canbe coloured according to therules. Hence, player 2 alwayswins. (Here's a nice littleextension: solve the sameproblem for a 4-dimensionalhypercube.) — Nishad Manerikar,nmanerikar@yahoo.com

I had sent solutions to earli-er problems but it seems myname doesn't look good inink. Anyway, the second playerwill always (Wait, let's have alook at that name first. Hmm,you're right; it's awful - espe-cially the v and the l andtwo g's. —MS)— Vishal Garg,vish_garg@yahoo.com

ENDGAMEA farmer plants a tree in a

square plot of land so that it is100 and 140 metres away fromthe two opposite corners ofthe plot and 60 metres awayfrom the third corner. What isthe area of the plot?(Submitted by JehangirModi, Surat)

Snailmail: D-268 Sushant Lok-I, Gurgaon,Haryana 122001Email: mindsport@mantraonline.comWebsite: www.mindsport.org

BETTER WATCH IT

Mukul Sharma

MINDSPORT

A mother and daughter walk during a traditional pilgrimage to visit Rocmo’s Virgin statue in the small village of Rocmo in southern Spain.Pilgrims come from all parts of Andalucia by foot or carriage to attend this event lasting several days. QUESTION: Which holy place gets themost number of pilgrims in a year?

AFP

What is TRP and how is it calculated?OPEN SPACE

Caste PoliticsThis refers to the debate,‘Should we extend reser-vation to the uppercastes’ (June 1), betweenBJP general secretaryPramod Mahajan andMahesh Daga. Being apolitician, Mr Mahajanw ants pow er for his par-ty at any cost. His partyw ould no doubt endorsethe idea of reservationfor the upper castes as itw ould lead to the crea-tion of a new vote-bank.It is unfortunate that

politicians never stop toconsider the pit-falls oftheir proposals.W hy isnobody talking aboutfake certificates,mis-use of funds and othersuch malpractices thatare synonymous withreservation? It would besimpler to help the eco-nomically back wardpeople by buildingmore schools.— B.S.Ganesh,Bangalore

Secular ViewIn many ways,the rea-son why secularism hasgone awry has been an-sw ered by GurucharanDas (May 18) himself.W hy did he have toreluctantly admit andsheepishly confessabout reading ancientSanskrit texts? Per-haps,he excepted hisfriend to come out withthe response that thelatter actually did,namely “Good God,man! You haven’tembraced Hindutva,have you?”Mr Das also has ex-

plained a feature ofintellectual terrorismthat exists in the coun-try.Unless one standsup to it, the practice ofsecularism will contin-ue in the present dis-torted manner,and Dasrecognises this too.Forexample,he is rightw hen he says that secu-larism was successfulin Europe because peo-ple were disgusted withthe corruption of insti-tutionalised religion.How ever,India has nev-er had an institutionalreligion, with the ex-ception of the reign ofEmperor Ashoka. Andthat reign cannot be ac-cused of being corrupt.— Ashok V.Chowgule,Mumbai

ANY ANSWERS?

You ask. Or you answer. Mark the envelopes ‘Open Space’ and address your answers and

questions to:Open Space, Sunday Times of India,II Floor, S&B Towers, 40/1, M.G. Road,

Bangalore — 560 001 email: open.space@indiatimes.com

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Stars get in the way ofmarriages in Gujarat

By Jahnavi Contractor andPresley Thomas

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

A h m e d abad/Vadodara:W hile the desire for a malechild has led to many prob-lems within a marriage,inGujarat is causing problemsw ell before the knot is tied.‘‘With Guru falling into the

simhast rashi, marriages inthe coming 13 months areconsidered inauspicious,’’said Dr Bhupendra Soni, aVadodara-based astrologer.According to him, the effectof this constellation is suchthat those who marry in thisperiod will not have a malechild. There is also a fear thatthe children would havephysical problems.Some astrologers dispute

this interpretation and saythat there will be select vid-

his (rituals) which would cir-cumvent the inauspicious pe-riod. The scare is such thatthe massive business of ho-tel, halls and caterers whichthrives on marriage cere-monies in Gujarat also mak-ing other plans.Gulab Kankaria of P G

Vatika, w here marriage cere-monies are hosted, said:‘‘These cosmic calculationswill definitely affect busi-ness.W ith no marriages be-ing scheduled for the next 13months,w e will concentratemore on organising partiesand picnics for school chil-dren to make up for the loss.’’There are many who don’t

believe in astrology. But ifthe going gets tough, w e planto compensate the loss byholding kids carnivals andother festivals,’’he added.

CMYK

Shastri to help Smith and co: In a bidto make the national players media savvy,the South African cricket team is hiring theservices of former Indian captain RaviShastri ahead of the series against Eng-land.Shastri, who now works as a televi-sion commentator, would be arriving inSouth Africa next week to help coachyoung captain Graeme Smith’s wards thefiner points of press relations.Smith, forwhom the England tour will be the first ma-jor assignment since taking the reign ofcaptaincy from Shaun Pollock soon afterthe World Cup, knows very well whatawaits them during the series.”That’s whywe won’t leave a stone unturned to ensurewe’re properly prepared for what awaitsus. Ravi (Shastri) can tell us what to expectfrom the point of view of a player and themedia,” Smith was quoted as saying by aSouth African website.PTI

National women football: Indianwomen’s football, which is already on thedecline, has received yet another jolt be-cause of the All India Football Federation’sdecision of sending 20 top players toBangkok for a tournament, leaving the11th National women’s championshipcommencing in Chennai on on Sundaywithout much competitive interest. Likelast year, this year’s championship waslikely to witness one-sided matches andteams from eastern India - Manipur, Ben-gal, Orissa, Bihar Tripura and Assam — areexpected to figure in the semifinals. PTI.

Man U to sell David: Manchester Unit-ed on Saturday confirmed for the first timethat they have received approaches fromItaly and Spain for David Beckham. In astatement that made it clear the Englishchampions are contemplating selling theirmost marketable asset this summer, Unitedsaid Beckham’s representatives were alsoengaged in talks about a move to the con-tinent. “Manchester United can confirm to-day that clubs from Italy and Spain haveexpressed a firm interest in signing DavidBeckham,” the statement, posted on theclub’s website, said. AFP

Sehwag out cheap: Virender Sehwagmanaged just five runs before he was runout as Leicestershire found themselves indeep, deep trouble in their four-day tieagainst Lancashire, battling as they were to preserve an unbeaten record in theFrizzell County Championship at Liverpool.Leicestershire, with five second inningswickets in hand, need 59 runs to avoid aninnings defeat against Lancashire. Sehwagwas run out 30 minutes before close lastevening when going for a non-existent second run. PTI

SPORT

Italian rider Loris Capirossi during theopening qualifying session for Sunday’sItalian MotoGP race at Mugello on Friday. Capirossi on a Ducati led a trio of Italian riders to the top three spots.

Reuters

BRIEFLY

A courageous runner with a heart of goldBy V Krishnaswamy

With the death of 57-year-oldShivnath Singh, a grand erain distance running in India

has come to an end. On Friday,theformer Asian Games gold medallistand one of India’s distance-runninglegends succumbed to Hepatitis-B inAdityapur,Jharkhand.Shivnath Singh was more of a

w orkhorse than a stylish racehorse.His will never wilted, even as thepained face and taped feet (no shoes)carried him closer to the finish line.It won him a clutch of medals in

events ranging from the 5,000m to themarathon during his peak years fro m1973 and 1978. He won as many as fivesilver medals and one Asian Gamesgold medal during that period.Shivnath’s first taste of a big meet

came in the inaugural Asian Cham-pionships in 1973 at Manila. He fin-ished second to Ichio Sato of Japanin both the 5,000 and 10,000. A yearlater,at the Teheran Asian Games,hew on his first and only major gold, inthe 5,000 metres.O ver the 10,000m, helost to teammate Hari Chand.In 1975, at the second Asian meet in

Seoul, he was again beaten to second

place in both the 5,000m (by Ito ofJapan) and in the 10,000m (onceagain by Hari Chand).The rivalry between Shivnath and

Hari,six years his junior,had reacheda crescendo.They had already startedgoing out of their way to chase eachother at the Nationals,cross-countriesand other road races in north India. Adisappointed Shivnath came backfrom the 1975 Seoul Asian Champi-onships and announced that he wasshifting to the marathon.Helping himmake that decision were Joginder Sai-ni, the then national coach, and thelate Ilyas Babar.At the trials for the 1976 Olympics,

Shivnath running a marathon for thefirst time, stunned everybody byclocking 2:15:58.In Montreal, the Naib Subedar de-

fied sore and painful shins to finish

as the best Asian and 11th overall outof the 71 who finished the marathon.For almost three-fourths of the

race,Shivnath was up in the frontwith the best.He was alongside Amer-ican Bill Rodgers,a Boston marathonwinner,and Finn Lasse Viren whow as trying the marathon after win-ning the 5,000m and the 10,000m forthe second time.The field also had the1972 Olympic champ,Frank Shorter,and the eventual winner,W aldemarCierpinski of East Germany.Cierpin-ski clocked 2:09:55 and Shorter2:10:45.8. Shivnath ended 11th with2:16:22.0 which was only a little slow erthan his then best of 2:15:58.Later in Jalandhar in 1978 Shiv-

nath clocked 2:11:59, w hich wasamended to 2:12:00, and it still standsin the record books.Shivnath ran the marathon unsuc-

cessfully at the Edmonton Common-w ealth Games in 1978, and then at theBangkok Asian Games, w here hecame fifth. Four years later, withHari Chand gone from the scene,Shivnath returned to the 10,000m atthe Delhi Asian Games in 1982.But this time too he finished fifth.

He continued into the MoscowOlympics in the marathon in 1980,but retirement was clearly aroundthe corner.Born before India’s independence,

in a poor family in the village ofManjeria (Bihar), Shivnath was thefifth of eight children. Like manyathletes of his era, there was alw aysan element of confusion about hisdate of birth. W hile many claimed itw as July 11, 1946, some early records,especially in the Arm y,show ed that itw as May 1945.In his later years,he moved fro m

the Arm y to Tisco in Jamshedpurand in 2001 he sought early retire-ment. He started working at thePetrol Station that was allotted tohim. But over the last few months,ill-health had rendered him immobileand on June 6, 2003, an era passedaw ay with him.

Henin-Hardenne winsmaiden title with easeParis: Belgium vs.Belgiumturned out to be a FrenchOpen mismatch. JustineHenin-Hardenne won herfirst major title on Saturday,beating Kim Clijsters 6-0, 6-4at Roland Garros in the firstall-Belgian Grand Slam final.Henin-Hardenne became

her tiny nation’s first GrandSlam champion, and she didit with surprising ease.Cli-jsters,seeded second, failedto convert six break-pointchances in the opening setand played 31 minutes beforewinning a game.W hen Clijsters hit one last

errant forehand on matchpoint, a jubilant Henin-Hardenne flung her racket,raised her arm s, looked tothe sky and covered her eyes.She hugged her friend, rivaland country woman at the netand gave Clijsters a pat onthe shoulder.Henin-Hardenne then went

into the stands to embraceher husband and her coach.‘‘It was an emotional matchfor me,’’ Henin-Hardennesaid. ‘‘I had to fight so hard,and I feel very happy.’’Clijsters was erratic fro m

the start and less aggressivethan the fourth-seeded

Henin-Hardenne, w hoshow ed the same kind ofpoise that helped her upsetdefending champion SerenaW illiams in the semifinals.Clijsters’ tactics backfired,

too,including untimely dropshots that Henin-Hardennechased down and whackedfor winners.The four gamesClijsters won were the few estgames for a women’s finalistat Roland Garros in 15 years.

‘‘I wasn’t even close toplaying my best tennis today,but I’m happy for Justine

that she won,’’said Clijsters,w ho lost the 2001 final to Jen-nifer Capriati. ‘‘I hope I canget another chance and dobetter next time.’’

The center-court crow d in-cluded King Albert andQueen Paola of Belgium, asw ell as Clijsters’ boyfriend,Lleyton Hewitt. The fans,soboisterous during Henin-Hardenne’s upset ofW illiams, w ere divided intheir support at first but root-ed in vain for a comeback by Clijsters. AP

AFP

Prabjot Singh (R) fends off a tackle from Pakistani defender Imran Rasool in the three-nation hockeymatch in Sydney on Saturday. Despite a 4-4 draw India managed to reach the final against Australia.

India escape with draw, in final

There used to be a time when India produced runners ofhigh pedigree.Most of them came from humble families,did not get proper training and invariably ran barefoot.They would come within sniffing distance of medals andthen fade aw ay into oblivion, soon to be forgotten. Thisis the story of Shivnath Singh, top distance runner,w ho

passed aw ay on June 6, 2003

Dillon’s burstcontains SLBridgetown: Fast bowlerMervyn Dillon grabbed threewickets as the W est Indies re-stricted Sri Lanka to 201 inthe opening One-day Interna-tional here on Saturday.Romesh Kaluwitharanaslammed 54 for his 23rd half-century in one-dayers, buthis effort was still not goodenough for his team to set achallenging target.The W est Indian bowlers,

led by Dillon (3-39), never al-low ed Sri Lanka to build abig partnership as they keptstriking at crucial stages.Kumar Dharmasena (40)

and Tillakaratne Dilshan (27)put on 59 for the sixth wicketlate in the innings.Sri Lankalost veterans Sanath Jaya-suriya and Marvan Atapattufor 46 runs in the opening 10overs as W est Indies captainBrian Lara’s early movesproduced the desired results.Sri Lanka: S Jayasuriya c Jacobs b Dillon 0;R Kaluwitharana run out 54; M Atapattu c andb Samuels 22; K Sangakkara c Sarwan bBernard 15; M Jayawardene c Dillon b Hinds8; T Dilshan b Drakes 27; K Dharmasena c Ja-cobs b Dillon 40; C Vaas b Dillon 10; M Mu-ralitharan c Samuels b Collymore 3; P Nis-sanka not out 7; HGD Nayanakantha run out(Collymore) 1. Extras: (w-11, nb-3) 14. Total(all out, 48.4 overs) 201. Fall of wickets: 1-0, 2-46, 3-83, 4-106, 5-112, 6-171, 7-186,8-192, 9-193. Bowling: Dillon 9.4-1-39-3(1nb, 1w); Collymore 9-0-44-1 (1nb, 2w);Samuels 10-0-31-1; Drakes 10-0-43-1 (1nb,2w); Bernard 2-0-11-1 (5w); Hinds 6-0-17-1;Gayle 2-0-16-0. AFP

Zimbabwe humiliated againChester-Le-Street: England beatZimbabw e by an innings and 69 runson the third day of the second Test atthe Riverside here on Saturday towin the two-match series.Like the first Test, w on by an in-

nings and 92 runs at Lord’s lastmonth, this one ended inside threedays.It was the first time since their1985 home series against Australiathat England had won back-to-backTests by an innings.Zimbabw e,meanwhile,lost their

ninth successive Test in what was thefirst ever played at the Riverside inthe northeast of England.Somerset seamer Richard Johnson

took six for 33 on his Test debut asZimbabw e were bowled out for 94 inreply to England’s 416 in the first in-nings.W hen Zimbabw e follow ed on,

Durham fast bowler Stephen Harmi-son took a Test-best four for 55 infront of his home crow d.Lancashire quick James Ander-

son, 20, also took four for 55, to followup his five for 73 on Test debut atLord’s.Yorkshire captain Anthony Mc-

Grath, w ho also made his Test debutat Lord’s,top-scored in England’s in-nings with 81 and there were half-centuries from Alec Stew art (68) andAshley Giles (50).Zimbabw e captain and fast bowler

Heath Streak took four for 64 in oneof few notew orthy performances bythe tourists while his fellow pacemanDouglas Hondo claimed a Test-best

three for 98.In Zimbabw e’s second innings

number seven Travis Friend topscored with 65 not out.Victory for England meant they

had won their first series since de-feating Sri Lanka 2-0 in a three-matchencounter at home last year.Both teams will meet again in the

first match of a triangular one-dayseries,also featuring South Africa, atTrent Bridge on June 26.But before then England face Pak-

istan in a three-match one-day seriesstarting at Old Trafford on June 17.Later this season England play

South Africa in a five- Test seriesstarting at Edgbaston on July 24.Zimbabw e play their next tour

m atch against Ireland in Belfast onJune 13. AFP

England, 1st innings: 416Zimbabwe, 1st innings: 94 Zimbabwe, 2nd innings:D Ebrahim lbw b Harmison 55M Vermeulen c McGrath b Anderson 0S Carlisle c Key b Anderson 28G Flower b Anderson 16T Taibu c Butcher b Giles 14S Ervine b Harmison 34T Friend not out 65H Streak run out 3A Blignaut c Hussain b Anderson 12R Price c Stewart b Harmison 6D Hondo b Harmison 4Extras: (b-6, lb-10) 16Total (all out in 93.4 overs) 253Fall of wickets: 1-5, 2-65, 3-102, 4-113, 5-131,6-185, 7-202, 8-223, 9-244Bowling: Anderson 23-8-55-4; Johnson 22-7-67-0;Harmison 21.4-4-55-4; Giles 25-9-51-1; Butcher 2-0-9-0

SCOREBOARD

TENNISFrench Open, Men’s Singles final

J.C. Ferrero 1/4M. Verkerk 11/4

(as per ladbrokes.com)

BETTING METER

DD Metro: 1800 hrs: French Open Tennis (Men’s final).DD Sports: 0900 hrs & 1600 hrs: Senior Asian WrestlingChampionships.ESPN: (Monday): NBA Finals (New Jersey Nets vs San Antonio Spurs (Game 3).Star Sports: 1600 hrs: FIM World Motorcycle Champi-onship: MotoGP 2003. 1900 hrs: West Indies vs Sri Lanka(2nd ODI).

LIVE ON TV

The Sunday Times of India, New Delhi, June 8, 2003

The Man U (or is it Barcelona? or Real Madrid?or AC Milan?) player David Beckham is to be

awarded the OBE in the Queen’s birthdayhonours later this month. And Queen

was delighted and excited by theprospect of a visit by Becks

NBC FOXes ABC It was supposed to be a close fight. ButNBC beat ABC and Fox easily for theexclusive TV rights in US for the 2010winter and 2012 summer OlympicGames. They merely had to pay US $2.2 billion for the honour though

Khaled, KhaledThe coach has changed. ButBangladesh could not find anew captain for the tour toAustralia. They have retainedall-rounder Khaled Mahmud.Will it change their fortunes?

Beck’s another strike

England win second Test against Zimbabwe with aplomb

Sydney: Handicapped by the second-half suspen-sion of Baljit Singh Dhillon, India allow ed in twogoals in the last 15 minutes to be held 4-4 by Pak-istan in an ill-tempered match but still managed toqualify for the final of the three-nation invitation-al hockey tournament on Saturday.India, w ho led 3-1 at half-time,dominated for most

part of the match but a red card to Dhillon in the 40thminute — a result of his exchange of blows with Pak-istan’s Ali Raza — tilted the balance in favour of Pak-istan. Raza was let offwith a yellow card.The result ensured that India would get an oppor-

tunity to avenge their defeat to Australia in the finalof the Perth leg,w hen the two sides meet again in thetitle clash on Sunday.It was a high-tension match be-tween the two arch-rivals with Pakistan — needing awin to qualify for the final — very keen to settle scoresfor the loss they suffered at the hands of India in theprevious leg of the tournament in Perth last week.How ever,it was India who took an early lead

w hen Dhillon scored twice in the 6th minute —through a penalty stroke and then a field goal sec-

onds later.Ali Raza converted a penalty corner inthe 10th minute to reduce the margin but PrabhjotSingh’s goal in the 30th minute once again provid-ed India with a two-goal advantage.Coach Rajinder Singh said the Pakistanis were

“irritated” by the deficit and “provoked” the Indi-ans.Dhillon and Raza were involved in a scuffleimmediately after Pakistan had reduced the mar-gin to 3-2 through a goal by Mohammad Saqlain inthe 39th minute.Though Jugraj Singh put India 4-2ahead in the 54th minute,Pakistan were able to ex-ploit the one-man deficit and score in the 55th and60th minutes through Kashif Jaw ad and ShabbirHussain to snatch a draw.

A ustralia held by second-string: Grant Schu-bert scored a brace as Australia ‘A’held their sen-ior team to a 3-3 draw in the final league match onSaturday.Australia, w ho were upset 2-7 by the sec-ond-string national team in the first leg of thetournament at Perth, w ere heading for a similarfate before prolific Scorer Jamie Dwyer scoredtwice to save his team the blushes.PTI

Reuters

Belgium’s Justine Henin-Hardenne is ecstatic after beatingher compatriot Kim Clijsters in the women’s singles final atthe French Open in Paris on Saturday.

*SUND80603/ /19/K/1*

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*SUND80603/ /19/Y/1*

SUND80603/CR2/19/Y/1

*SUND80603/ /19/M/1*

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SUND80603/CR2/19/C/1

CMYK

20 SU N DAY TIMES O F INDIA New Delhi, June 8, 2003 S P O R T

GREAT INDIAN SOCCER MELA

By Nilanjan Datta & Raju Bhattacharjee

Are Ronaldinho andDavid Beckhamsw apping clubs?W ill Patrick Kluiv-

ert partner Rudd van Nistel-rooy at Old Trafford? W illReal Madrid renew their con-tract with coach Del Bosque?These are questions that

put the world of football in atizzy every year.In India too,the transfer season is full ofexcitement, skull-duggeryand intrigue.The only differ-ence is that players sw appingclubs is a dream. W hy,eventhe ubiquitous coach doesn’thave the freedom and pow erto cull his own team; that jobis taken care of by the re-cruiters.Subhas Bhowmick, the

East Bengal coach, is possi-bly the one exception. He for-m ulated his gameplan for theseason and went about form -ing his own team. He ignoreda few weak links and roped instronger alternatives to fillthe chinks in his team’s ar-mour.East Bengal, of course,are

planning big this season:they have their eyes on theASEAN Championship inThailand next month. Theyspent close to Rs 1.65 crore (itis believed that over Rs 20crore exchanged hands in theIndian soccer market this

season) and have undoubted-ly emerged as the best combi-nation in the country.Debjit Ghosh, after leading

the Mahindra United mid-field last season, hasswitched allegiance to EBand Indian skipper BaichungBhutia after all the talks ofgoing to Singapore andGreece have reportedlysigned at Rs 20 lakh each. Hehad received exactly halfthat amount from MohunBagan last season. MaheshGawli, one of national coachStephen Constantine’sfavourite disciples,has alsoleft the glittering Goanshores for a stroll by the Vic-toria Memorial. He has re-portedly been paid Rs 15lakh. Veteran Tushar Rak-shit, meanwhile,has stayedwith the club for the 13thyear in a row.The scene clearly has be-

come rosy.If anything,onlyone little anomaly stands out:the clubs are still coy aboutthe players’ salaries.Baichung, foe example, isfighting to get 40 % of his lastseason salary from Baganbut ask him the figure and heclogs up.One can only guess-

estimate the amounts paid tonational team defenders likeSameer Naik, Dipak Mondal,Mahesh Gawli and DebjitGhosh.Arch-rivals Mohun Bagan,

despite having the samebudget (UB Group is the com-

mon feeder for both) haven’tbeen able to buy as success-fully as EB.Bagan’s manage-ment may have gone topsy-turvy following a few courtverdicts but after consulta-tions with Brazilian JoseRamirez Barreto (worth Rs

40 lakh) have managed tobook only his countrymate,Marcos Pereira, for Rs 25lakh. In sharp contrast, thenippy Ashim Bisw as,the findof the 7th NFL, has been ableto bargain only up to Rs 8lakh.Coach Aloke Mukherjee is,

how ever, optimistic. He be-lieves he will be able to put itacross with his motleybunch, but in reality,the Na-tional Club of India is gasp-ing for a genuine stopper-back. For the first time,though, four Punjab foot-ballers (Hardip Gill, HardipSaini, Harpreet Singh andBalkar Singh) have decidedto try out Bengali fish cur-ries instead of tandoorichicken at the Bagan mess atRoyd Stret, Kolkata.The good news is that

game has spread beyondKolkata. Mahindra Unitedchief Anand Mahindra hadpumped in Rs 3 crore (ap-proximately) last season andintends to carry on in thesame vein. W hile DebjitGhosh had a contract worthRs 22 lakh last season, JulesAlberto and Venkatesh, backin the Mahindra fold fro m

Vasco and East Bengal re-spectively,will also be earn-ing almost the same.And af-ter Karel Stromsik, the for-mer Czech W orld Cupper,they have thrown the coach-ing reins to another foreign-er,David Booth, fresh from astint in the SingaporeLeague.Henry Britto,the general

secretary of SalgaocarSports Club,Goa, feels thatthe Kolkata clubs have creat-ed a huge rift between theplayers.“They spend almost40% of their budget on oneindividual. W e have a budgetof less than a crore but wewill have a more balancedside.All Goan clubs (five thisseason for the NFL) havespent about Rs one crore fortheir own teams,’’he adds.“Rubbish. I have been asso-

ciated with Goan clubs forlong and know that theyspend much more than that,’’says a senior coach, on condi-tion of anonymity. “YusifYakubu (a Ghanian strikerw ho has been the top-scorerin the last two editions of theNFL) earns close to Rs 25lakh.’’Incidentally, Yakubu has

crosed over from ChurchillBrothers to Dempo SportsClub,w ho after a dream startlast season finished fourth.“Clubs don’t hesitate to

spend more on a foreign re-cruit,”agrees Sultan Ahmed,Mohammedan Sporting’sgeneral secretary.The latestentrant into the NFL, Sport-ing have set up a budget of Rs2 crore for the season and sofar have paid the maximu mto Nigerian Habib Adekunle(Rs 10 lakh). Sources informthat they have reserved alarge sum to rope in more re-cruits prior to the NFL.“Monetarily, there aren’t

too many options for Indianfootballers as all the clubs of-fer almost the same,” HenryMenezes, former Mahindragoalkeeper and a present offi-cial, says.“The token system has

been beneficial to the clubs,”Anjan Mitra, the MohunBagan general secretarymaintains. “Gone are thedays of m uscle-men, politicalintervention and a player’snuances.If you have the to-ken, a footballer is bound toplay for you.”But then, there have been a

few enduring stories offriendship too: Joe-Paul A n-cheri and IM Vijayan havebeen virtually inseparable.No amount of money couldlure the in-form Ancheriaw ay from his old pal, w hoseemed to have been a forgot-ten soul.

Ajit Ninan

Indian football is slowly coming of age.The just-completed transfer season proved that the stars are in demand, that the clubs are willing to pay big money

for them. W ho has cornered the biggest pie? W hich team has emerged the strongest? Times News Network goes behind the scenes

Yusif Yakubu — Churchill Brothers (Rs. 30 lakh) Marcos Perira — Mohun Bagan (Rs. 25 lakh)Mike Okoro — East Bengal (Rs. 16 lakh)Douglas da Silva — East Bengal (15 lakh)Suleh Musah — East Bengal (Rs. 15 lakh)

The moolah

BaichungBhutia: EastBengal (20 L)

J Barreto:MohunBagan (50 L)

DebjitGhosh: EastBengal (15 L)

Dipak Mondal: EastBengal (15 L)

MaheshGawli: EastBengal (15 L)

Highest paid Indians (approximate sums)

Highest paid foreigners (approximate sums)

For one day,he felt likean emperor. Andthat’s because of his

a b d u c -tion, onM ay 20,2003, 47days be-fore thisyear’s fi-nal trans-fer date!S y e dR a h i mN abi was

w hisked aw ay from a felici-tation ceremony from thecrow ded Howrah station.At2.30 pm in front of a thou-sand people.The talented U-19 India striker,incidental-ly,hails from Pandua, thevillage associated withBankim Chandra Chat-topadhay’s novel Debdas.“I had heard stories about

pre-transfer kidnappingsduring my childhood. I nev-er imagined that I would bepart of it some day,” N abi,w ho shone for Mohem-madan Sporting last season,told TNN from his resi-dence in Pandua, Hooghly.“ We were in a triumphant

mood. The previous day wehad beaten Services to helpBengal annex the U-21 MDutta Ray trophy at Balia,Bihar.W e sang and dancedthroughout our return jour-ney by Shatabdi Express.And as the train touchedplatform No.9 in Howrah we

could see a huge gathering.W e realised that the IFA hadorganised a felicitation pro-gramme for us.”Little did Nabi know

w hat was in store for him.“The tika and garlandingceremony had just finished.A horde of people,all chant-ing my name,lifted me ontheir shoulders and put mein a blue Maruti van wait-ing on the road betweenplatform No.9 and 10. And Iw as whisked off to Mo-hammedan Sporting officeat Park Circus. Aroundeight Tata Sumos barricad-ed my car all throughout.My relatives who had cometo receive me didn’t even re-alise what was happening,”he informed.“Actually, I had con-

firmed my transfer to Mo-hun Bagan but they did notget back to me. So onceSporting boss Sultanbhairequested me to stay back, Iobliged,” N abi, w ho helpedSporting qualify for theelite NFL explained.“But if one asks me to

pick my most memorableday,I would go for the day ofthe signing,” N abi addswith a grin. “Around 5000spectators, all dancing topopular tunes being playedby a band party,led me tothe IFA office.They mademe feel like an emperor.”Some abductions clearly

have happy endings.

Rahim Nabi

An emperor forone full day

1991: He was the darling of MohunBagan supportersfor eighteen years.But the club re-cruits had hadenough of SubrataBhattacharya. Theysaid no. Even astempers were ris-ing, they came up with a dramaticsolution: they signed up ManoranjanBhattacharya, the East Bengal stop-per. Mona had spent 14 years in thered-and-gold shirt but he too hadlost favour with his club manage-ment.To make matters even moreelectric, Mona offered to play forBagan for just one rupee. ‘‘That ismy contract,’’ he said. It marked thebeginning of a new transfer culturein Indian football. But even as hewas signing for his new club, withtrembling hands, the police wasfighting agitated protesters outsidethe Netaji Indoor Stadium with tear-gas. In the melee, one fan was killedand many injured. Over hundredwere even arrested. The picture ofrival supporters brandishing re-volvers in each other’s faces stillhaunts the two clubs1992: It was the summer of 1992.

East Bengal had al-ready finalisedtheir transfers.Their prize catcheswere Krishanu Dey(now late) for Rs 5lakh and BikashPanji for Rs 4 lakh

(a princely sum in those days). Mo-hun Bagan were literally caughtnapping. As soon as they realisedwhat they had lost, they started mis

sion save face. Satya Sadhan ‘Tutu’Bose, a Bagan patron, called up Kr-ishanu’s wife and said: “East Bengalpaanch dicche, amra aro tin beshidebo. (I know East Bengal are pay-ing 5 (lakh), we’ll pay three more).”The left-footed wizard couldn’t re-sist the bait. But East Bengal weren’tready to give up. They were strug-gling to match Bagan’s offer whentwo of their supporters arrived. Withtheir wives’ jewellery. SuprakashGorgori, the then EB recruiter, spentthe entire night outside Krishanu’sresidence, hoping to catch him firstthing in the morning. “Vikkche de (Ibeg for Krishanu),” he pleaded withKrishanu’s mother. But the bird hadalready flown: Bagan supporterswere already celebrating.1998: The next big fight had to in-volve BaichungBhutia. But thistime, it wasn’t be-tween the twoarch-rivals; it wasbetween MohunBagan and the Indi-an Football Associ-ation (the state association). IFA sec-retary Ranjit Gupta lent East Bengala sum of Rs 12 lakh to help them fi-nalise their contract with theSikkimise sniper. “Baichung’s pres-ence in Bengal would boost thegame in the state,” argued Gupta.Sounds logical but somehow therewas a ring of unfairness around it.How could the parent body patron-ise one club, that too in a way thatwould directly harm the other. Notsurprisingly, the Bagan supportersransacked Gupta’s office.

—Nilanjan

Three classics: How they were lured

Manoranjan

Bhutia

Krishanu

Gurbinder, Geetika bag silver; bronze for KripaBy Vineeta Pandey

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

N ew Delhi: GurbinderSingh and Geetika Jhakar,w ho were in hunt for a gold,ended up with a silver eachin the senior Asian wrestlingchampionship.Gurbinder started aggres-

sively but a fighting ZeidVand Pariviz of Iran gave himno chance to dominate.Pariv-iz picked Gurbinder up andthrew him down for a clean 8-1 win. Geetika also lost thegold to Japanese Ayako Shodain 63kg without much fight.In freestyle,Kripa Shankar

(55kg) and Kamini Yadav(48kg) bagged a bronze each.In a hard-fought bout, Kripatook an early lead but hisKazak opponent caught up at2-2 and that’s how thingsstood at the end of scheduledtime.In extra-time,Kripa dis-played better technique tooutscore his opponent.Earlier, Palwinder Singh

Cheema did not disappoint

his fans. W ithout wastingm uch time on the mat hepinned down MohammadAshraful of Bangladesh injust 20 seconds.The man who

bagged India’s first AsianGames medal in wrestling af-ter a gap of 12 years at Busan,finished his 120kg freestylebout even before it had actual-

ly begun. For the Bangladeshigrappler was in aw e of the In-dian star and moved nervous-ly.Cheema pounced on himlike a hungry tiger and pinnedhim down even before Ashra-ful had batted his eyelids.That victory meant

Cheema will be fighting forthe gold medal in his catego-ry on Sunday.Earlier,Sushil Kumar and

Sujit Mann kept themselveson course for medals byreaching the freestyle semifi-nals.In Greco-Roman 120kg,Virender Singh finished willfight for a bronze.Iran leads the tally in

men’s freestyle while in Gre-co-Roman, K azakhstan’s atthe top.Japan maintained itshold on the women’s section.After having his first look

at his wards in action duringan international meet, A n-drez Malina, India’s Greco-Roman coach from Poland,might have realised the workhe needs to do with the squad.

Though Gurbinder Singhbagged a silver,the mannerin which he was outplayedw ould given Malina muchfood for thought. How ever,the coach was confident thatthe grapplers were talentedenough and can do betterwith some improvement.

Results: (all Indians): 3rd round: Menfreestyle: 60kg: Sushil Kumar bt Miras YerNazarov (Kaz) 5-0; 74kg: Sujit Mann bt Ka-juya (Jpn) 4-0; 96kg: Pekh Tuya Turskin (Mon)bt Jagdish Kalliraman 3-1; 120kg: PalwinderSingh Cheema bt Md Ashraful (Ban) byfall.Women: 72kg: Burma Ochirabat (Mong)bt Gursharanpreet Kaur 3-2.

Greco Roman:60kg: Ravinder Singh btUbbkeev Moksat (Kgz) 7-1; 74kg: Choi DukHoon (Kor) bt Sanjay Kumar 7-0; 120KG:Virender Singh bt Hirokuza (Jpn) by fall.

Winners: Women: 48kg: 1. Phyam Thi-mai (Vie), 2. Kamini Yadav, 3. Mika Nuguchi(Jpn); 63kg: 1. Ayako Shoda (Jpn), 2. GitikaJhakar, 3. Hang Jin Young (Kor); 55kg: 1. Ot-gonjargal (Mgl) 2. Sayuvi Tatemoto (Jpn) 3.Lee Na Lae (Kor) Men: Freestyle: 55kg: 1.Md Aslani (Irn), 2. Yang Yae Hoon (Kor), 3. Kri-pa Shankar; 66kg: 1. Taj Masbi Hassan (Irn)2. Kazu Hiko (Jpn), 3. Baya Magni (Mgl);84kg: 1. Dorst Kar (Irn), 2. Aliev Shahil (Tjk),3. Magd Med (Kaz) Greco-Roman: 55kg: 1.Iman Bye Va (Kaz), 2. Baufa Hamid (Irn), 3.Imdawon (Kor); 66kg: 1. Zeid Vand Pariviz(Irn), 2. Gurbinder Singh, 3. Begliev Kanat(Kgz); 84kg: 1. Jabrailov Abdulla (Kaz), 2. Ero-faylon (Uzb), 3. Marasheian S. Ahmed (Irn).

Naren sets ahot pace

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Nashik: Reigning Nationalchampion V R Naren Kumar(co-driver Moosa Sherif) yetagain underlined his statusas one of the best in the coun-try with some superb drivingthat saw him finish the firstleg of the MRF Taj ChallengeRally in a strong position,here on Saturday.

The 28-year old Team MRFace from Coimbatore was offto a cautious start in his Hon-da City V-Tec when he fin-ished the first of the fourSpecial Stages third behindteam-mates N Leelakrishnan(co-driver Farooq Ahmed)and Karandip Singh (co-driv-er Jaidas Menon), But there-after,Naren Kumar steppedup the pace to leave the packbehind, clocking the quickeston the remaining three Spe-cial Stages.

In Overall second position,a good 32 seconds behindNaren Kumar,w as a cautiousArjun Balu (co-driver KumarRamasw a my), but just fiveseconds ahead of Rahul Kan-tharaj (co-driver VivekBhatt) who are competing inthe 1300cc class in an MPFIEsteem.

Mushtaq soccerfrom June 10Srinagar: The sixth Mush-taq Memorial football tour-nament featuring as many as22 teams will be held here atBakshi Stadium from June10. Besides defending cham-pions Ja m mu and KashmirBank, BSF and CRPF are the other two top teams inthe fray.The football tourna-ment was initiated by the J &K Police in 1998 in memory ofpolicemen who laid dow nlives fighting terrorism.

The inaugural match willbe an exhibition match be-tween Kashmir Football As-sociation veterans and J & KPolice veterans.PTI

SENIOR ASIAN WRESTLINGMohammed Ilyas

Geetika Jhakar (in blue) in action during the 63 kg final boutof the senior Asian Wrestling Championship on Saturday.

BEHIND THE SCENES

CROSS COUNTRY

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World U-14 No.2. G Ro-hit of Andhra Pradesh

gave yet another commend-able performance by achiev-ing an InternationalMaster norm at theCommonwealth ChessChampionship spon-sored by Union Bank ofIndia. In the ninth round,he scored a surprise vic-tory over World champi-onship qualifier Neelot-pal Das of Indian Rail-ways. White’s advan-tage in the diagram po-sition does not seem tobe great, but Rohit(White) found a powerfulcontinuation leading to aforced win. Can youfind it?POSITION:White: Kg1; Qh4; R-a1,e1;Bd4; Nb3; P-a5,b2,c4,f6,g2,h3.Black: Kh8; Qe8; R-a8,f8; B-c6, d8; P-a6,b7,e6,f7,g6,h7.PROBLEM: White to play andwin.SOLUTION: The white knightjoins the other White forces tocreate decisive attack againstBlack’s King with 1. Nc5!

There followed 1...g5? (Itwould have been better toprotect the ‘e6’ point with1...Bd7 though White still winsby force with 2.Nxb7. After thetext, White won material with apretty combination.) 2Qh6!Rg8 3.Rxe6!! Qf8 (Not 3...fxe64.f7+ e5; 5.fxe8=Q etc.)4.Qg7+!! Rxg7 5.fxg7+ Qxg76.Bxg7+ Kxg7 7. Re2Black soon abandoned thehopeless battle.

Pravin Thipsay

CHESS Last week, we dis cussed adeal in which the final

contract was destined to bemade, so to say, when a com-petent declarer was at thehelm of affairs. Today, let usexamine another deal thathad a destiny. The deal cameup during one of the SwissLeague rounds of the recentlyconcluded Indian team tri-als.

West dealt and opened andSouth ended up in 3Nt onmany tables. On one table,West opened 1H, North over-called 1S, East employed aweak jump to 3H, and Northreopened with a double afterEast and South passed.South's 3Nt ended the auc-tion. On another table, Westtried a 1Nt opening and ran to2H after North doubled, butNorth-South still found a de-cent spot __ 3Nt by South.

West was endplayed at trickone! If he led a Heart, Southwould win, play the ♦Jack for afinesse, and make nine trickswith five Diamonds, twoSpades, the ♥King, and the ♣Awhich would serve as an entryfor cashing Diamonds. OneWest led with ♣2. Declarer wonwith the ♣Queen in Dummy,

and cashed the ♠A. When Westthoughtfully unblocked the♠Queen, Declarer reverted toDiamonds using the ♣A as anentry for the Diamond finesseand relying on West holding Kxof Diamonds. Another Westtried an imaginative ♠Queen forthe opening lead. South simplyducked!! 3Nt bid and madewas the destiny of thedeal.www.demicoma.com toi@demicoma.com

Prakash Paranjpe

BRIDGE

♠ Q 2 ♥ A Q 9 7 5♦ K 7 ♣ K 8 4 2

♠ J 4 3♥ T 8 4 3 ♦ 5 4 3 ♣ J 9 5

♠ 8 5♥ K 6♦ J 9 8 6 2 ♣ A 7 6 3

♠ A K T 9 7 6♥ J 2♦ A Q T ♣ Q T

W Dealer NS Vul

Perfect Venueset for double

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

N ew Delhi: Perfect Venue,an easy winner in his lastouting,is all set to complete adouble in the Chief Minis-ter’s Cup (Gr III), the mainevent of the Bangalore racesscheduled for Sunday.Selections: Pendragon Plate (div.II):1,200m: 2.00pm: Rhapsody In Blue 1,Madam Martina 2, Etching 3. AnkaraPlate: 1,100m: Crush 1, Star View 2,Bold N On 3. Pendragon Plate (div.I):1,200m: Candramala 1, The Big Fight 2,Grand Pere 3. PrabaloPlate: 1,200m:Flash of Speed 1, Battle Honour 2, King-ley 3. Chief Minister’s Cup (Gr II):1,200m: Perfect Venue 1, Top Gun 2,Cape Martin 3. Y RamachandraMemorial Plate (div.I): 1,400m: ChilliGirl 1, Red Chief 2, Fugleman 3. Bada-mi Cup (div.I): 1,200m: Prince Valiant1, Star of Heaven 2, Ankole 3. Y Ra-machandra Memorial Plate (div.II):1,400m: Alannah 1, Believer 2, One Aim3. Badami Cup (Div.II): 1,200m:6.00pm: Florale 1, Saratoga Sizzle 2, LaBella Vita 3.

RACES

CMYK

SU N DAY TIMES O F INDIA New Delhi, June 8, 2003 21S P O R TAFP

SPACE JAM: Tim Duncan (21) of San Antonio Spurs tries to shoot over Dikembe Mutombo ofNew Jersey Nets during Game Two of the NBA Finals in San Antonio on Friday. New JerseyNets edged the San Antonio Spurs 87-85.

‘Beckham circus on,United want to talk’London: The David Beck-ham transfersaga contin-ued with re-ports thatM a n chesterUnited wantto bring for-w ard newcontract talks to test theplayer’s loyalty, the DailyMail reported on Saturday.Beckham has been linked

with a move aw ay from OldTrafford on and off for thelast few months,even thoughhe has sw orn his loyalty tothe club he joined as a traineein 1991. It is believed Beck-ham firsts wants to see howm uch United officials want tokeep him for footballing,rather than commercial rea-sons,before he enters into dis-cussions for a new contract.Meanwhile Barcelona

presidential candidate Joan

Laporta has backtrackedover reported comments thatthe signature of Beckhamw as virtually a done deal.Laporta told the Mail: “I

have never said I am going tobuy Beckham.” United direc-tor Bobby Charlton said how -ever:“It’s not total specula-tion. He’s a good player and inan ideal world I’d want him tostay.But United are my cluband its welfare is paramount.”Beckham still has two

years left on his deal andUnited officials know an at-tempt to extend that willshow fans their eagerness tostall their biggest asset’sm ove.Beckham and his ad-visers may not rush intotalks knowing United havespoken to Barcelona andm ay suspect they are de-signed to prevent him reach-ing the end of his contractand leaving for nothing.AFP

Injury rulesJohnson outof Lewis fightLos Angeles: CanadianKirk Johnson’s shot atheavyweight worldchampion Lennox Lewisw as on hold after a spar-ring injury on W ednes-day prompted doctors torule him out of theirscheduled June 21 boutat Staples Center.“ We are very disap-

pointed at the postpone-ment because we trulybelieve that Kirk had agreat shot to beat LennoxLewis,” said Johnson’spromoter Dino Duva.“The injury should healwithin six weeks andw e’re hopeful of resched-uling the bout for Augustor September.” AFP

Stern expectsJordan back San Antonio: N ational Bas-ketball Association commis-sioner David Stern said hereFriday that he expectsMichael Jordan to make a re-turn to the league in an exec-utive capacity before nextseason.“It’s my strong sense he

will be back in the league forthe 2003-2004 season,” Sternsaid. Admitting he was verycertain about the move,Stern deferred on furthercomment, saying confiden-tiality prevented him fro madding details.

Jordan, w ho led the Chica-go Bulls to six NBA titles,re-tired in A pril at age 40 afterhis second comeback, a diffi-cult two-year stint with theW ashington W izards.Jordanvow ed he would not return asa player but went to W izardsowner Abe Pollin after theseason to talk about his re-turn as vice president of bas-ketball operations.But Pollindid not want Jordan backand the two parted after aheated discussion.Jordan has been linked to

several NBA executive posts,but one most often cited hasbeen the expansion franchisefor Charlotte that will beginplay in the 2004-2005 season. AFP

Portugal drawBarga: Portugal, the host na-tion of next year’s Europeanchampionship, produced ascrappy performance andsettled for a goalless draw onFriday against visitorParaguay in a friendly. Por-tugal enjoyed total domi-nance in second half but paidthe price for poor finishing.AP

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These number gamesThe flurry of activity by theBoard of Control for Cricketin India in recent weeksshows good form in the leanseason, as it were.It suggestsadministrative vigour and,given the range of activities,also vision.

W hat exactly this vision is must aw ait rat-ification - for there is alw ays the proverbialgap between bat and pad. But it is commend-able that Board president JagmohanDalmiya is willing to take fresh guard in-stead of resting on his laurels or wallowingin his problems.That said, the usefulness of the conclave of

spinners in Kolkata is open to question, apartof course from being a fine gesture by theBCCI in getting most of the well-know nmembers of the slow bowling fraternity to-gether.In such matters,more people maymake for a good photo-op but is unlikely toproduce quality opinion, insight or solution;rather it might lead to chaos.As it happened, the most tom-tommed

point of view which emerged was that India’sbudding spinners should be kept aw ay fro mlimited overs cricket, w hich I’m afraid isdelusionary.In fact, there is not very muchlimited overs cricket played by young spin-ners in India, if the fixtures are anything togo by,and helluva lot as they graduate intothe big league.Moreover,there is no evidence that high

quality spinners cannot emerge in an envi-ronment where one-day cricket is profuse.Shane W arne, Muttiah Muralitharan andAnil Ku m ble — to name the most obvious —have performed with aplomb and huge suc-cess in one-dayers and Test matches in thelast decade.The reality of modern cricket demands

that young spinners get accustomed to bothforms of the game,and ASAP,so that they are

ready to take on the challenges at the inter-national level without self-doubt.That should have been the brief for stal-

w arts like Bishen Bedi, Erapalli Prasannaand Venkataraghavan for instance.No coun-try boasts of such a rich heritage of spinbowling,and these three are acknowledgedmaestros.W here craft is concerned, their credentials

are impeccable,and how this can be adaptedto the modern scenario should be theirthrust. Is this possible at a brief conclavewith so many people present, I wonder.W here skill is concerned, playing the con-sensus game can be futile.By the way, two distinguished left-arm

spinners,both with 100-plus wickets to theircredit, w ere not in the conclave. PerhapsDilip Doshi is on the Rolling Stones’ w orldtour,but I have it on authority that Ravi Shas-tri was not invited. W hatever the reasons fortheir non-participation, it was a bit of ashame.Shastri has played contemporary cricket at

some length, Doshi has a contemporarymindset - and the issue is contemporarycricket, w ot?

★★★The ‘Captain and Coaches’ conclave at

Mumbai last week seemed far more purpose-ful. Here,the number of delegates was im-portant because the standard of domesticcricket varies dramatically from team toteam. Every input can be crucial.

I wish some other worthies - and especial-ly current players - had deemed it fit to attendbecause unless the quality of domestic crick-et improves dramatically,India are unlikelyto become the best side in the world.Sunil Gavaskar’s idea to invite a foreign

team to play the Duleep Trophy is worth pur-suing.An Australia ‘A’, for instance,w ouldmake the tournament far more competitive.But I think he is far more pertinent when hesays that the ‘stars’ m ust be compelled to playfar more domestic cricket.It is not only be-cause this will do wonders for the game.Theyalso ow e it to Indian cricket.

THE SPORTING LIFEAyaz Memon

CMYK

22 SU N DAY TIMES O F INDIA New Delhi, June 8, 2003 S P O R T

Ball girl unhurt, but Coria paysfor racket toss: Guillermo Coria wasfined US$2,000 for inadvertently hittinga ball girl with his racket when hetossed it at the ball during his 7-6 (4), 6-4, 7-6 (0) loss to Martin Verkerk in theFrench Open semifinals on Friday. Coriacould have been defaulted from thematch. Instead, deputy tournament ref-eree Fabrice Chouquet and Grand Slamsupervisor Norbert Peick let him keepplaying after the ball girl said she wasn’thurt.On the final point of the first set,Verkerk hit a backhand volley putaway.With no chance at reaching the ball, Co-ria flung his racket at it. As the rackettravelled several metres, the ball girl putup her hands and tried to get out of theway. As the crowd gasped, an alarmedCoria put his hands on his head.Herushed over to the ball girl, clasped hishands together as if to say, “I’m sorry,”and then shook her hand. Then he tookoff his shirt and gave it to her.Asked bytournament officials if she were hurt, theball girl responded, “C’est bon” (“It’sOK”).“I threw the racket to touch theball, as I often do. But the thing is, it justflew out of my hands,” Coria said. “Itwas really bad luck. I didn’t mean any-thing by it, and I apologized three orfour times. I really felt very, very badly. Itwas not at all my intention to do anyharm with the racket when I threw it.”

Serena miffed, Justine unapolo-getic:Serena Williams was miffed atJustine Henin-Hardenne’s role in a dis-pute with the chair umpire during theirsemifinal match at the FrenchOpen.Henin-Hardenne said she didnothing wrong.Williams hit an errantserve as Henin-Hardenne appeared toask for time. But the umpire didn’t seeHenin-Hardenne make the request, sothe serve stood.Williams, who lost thematch, accused Henin-Hardenne of “ly-ing and fabricating.””I didn’t have anydiscussion with the chair umpire,”Henin-Hardenne said. “He didn’t ask meanything.”When asked why she didn’toffer Williams two serves, Henin-Hardenne said, “because I was so fo-cused on myself. The chair umpire isthere to deal with this kind of incident.”

It’s time to put his feet up:AlbertCosta will finally get a chance to rest af-ter spending more than 21 hours in thefailed defence of his French Opentitle.”It’s the end of the marathon,” Cos-ta said after losing in the semifinal to

Spanish compatriot Juan Carlos Fer-rero, 6-3, 7-6 (5), 6-4.Costa, who beatFerrero in last year’s final, leaves Pariswith his head held high. He overcametwo-set deficits twice during the tourna-ment and won four five-set matches, aRoland Garros record in the Openera.Speculation surrounding Costa in-creased as he worked his way through

the opening rounds. Was he falling be-hind in matches on purpose? He deniedit with a smile - yet he did seem to relishin his improbable comebacks.Ferreroadmitted that, after building a two-setlead against Costa, doubts entered hismind.”When I sat in the chair and I seethe score, two sets up, I think a littlebit,” Ferrero said.

F R E N C H F R I E SAFP

Paris: A topsy-turvy men’stournament at this year’sFrench Open could finish upwith the proverbial biter be-ing bitten in Sunday’s final.Third seed Juan Carlos Fer-

rero goes into the trophym atch as the last man stand-ing among the huge Spanishclaycourt armada.But the wiry 23-year-old

from Onteniente,nicknamedthe Mosquito, now has todraw the sting from a 24-year-old Dutchman who has theserve - and shots - to blast himoffthe Philippe Chatrier cen-tre court.Pre-tournament logic

w ould have dictated a no con-test between Ferrero andMartin Verkerk.The same logic how ever

w ould have dictated thatVerkerk, ranked 46 in thew orld and without a singleGrand Slam match win to hisname in seven years on theprofessional circuit, w ouldnot have made it all the way tothe last day.Yet Verkerk, from Leider-

dorp between Amsterdamand The Hague, has notfluked his way to the final tak-ing some notable scalps alongthe way.His victims include Span-

ish 1998 champion CarlosM oya, as well as German 11thseed Rainer Schuettler. Hethen booked his passage bysw atting Argentine seventhseed Guillermo Coria 7-6(7/4), 6-4, 7-6 (7/0) in a 2hr40min semifinal, firing dow n19 aces and 62 winners.If Verkerk describes his

run as “a joke” it’s a jokew hich will have fallen flat onthose he has left by the way-side.Ferrero may have comehere as the Monte Carlo Mas-ters champion and he canboast an astonishing clay-court win-loss record for the

season of 27-2. But he is notabout to underestimate his ri-val, w hom he beat on Austri-an clay in the round of 16 atKitzbuhel in straight sets intheir only previous meeting.

“I watched a little bit ofVerkerk’s match (with Coria).He has a lot of confidenceright now.He beat very greattennis players here.“I think that clay is not re-

ally his surface - but he’s play-ing unbelievably.I will see onthe court how I will return hisserve,”said Ferrero,w ho wasnot fully fit when he bow ed toCosta 12 months ago.“I’m happy to be in the final

again. Everything is fineright now - my arm is 100 per-cent.”Verkerk, w hose exploitshere have lifted him into thetop 20 in the ATP ChampionsRace - a win on Sunday willvault him into the top 10 - ismaking up for lost time afterpreferring nocturnal amuse-ments to sw eat and toil on thetraining court until only re-cently.“I was struggling and Iw anted to quit,” said Verkerkof his early days on the Tour.“I was mentally not good.”Fame came late to the 1.91m

star - but he is now ready forit. “ With this result I changedm y tennis results aroundfrom a nobody to someonew ho became a somebody.Verkerk is the first ever

Dutchman to make the finalhere and he was overcomewith emotion after seeing offCoria. “It’s a miracle - I waslike (ranked) 180 a year ago,now I’m heading for the top 20.“I love the game.It would

have been really tough to giveit up but if you’re not improv-ing...“I didn’t have the mental

strength - but at the moment Ireally want it,” said Verkerk,w ho landed his first title inMilan last February and whohere has more than doubledhis previous career earningsof 300,000 dollars.“The money is not impor-

tant to me.I can’t explain this.This is a dream - it’s actuallya little bit of a joke.I don’tknow any more what hap-pened to me.The main thingis I really worked very hard -they say if you work hard itcomes one day.” AFP

Verkerk out to sting Mosquito

Juan Carlos Ferrero (ESP)Seed: 3 Age: 23 Lives: Villena, Spain Plays: Right-handed, double-handed backhand Grand Slam titles: none Record at French Open: 2002 fi-nal, 2001 semi-final, 2000 semi-final

The Spanish number onereached his second successive

French Open final by avenginglast year’s loss to Albert Costa inthe semis. He had become onlythe fifth man to reach four suc-cessive semi-finals here by beat-ing Chilean Fernando Gonzalez inthe previous round.Winner this year in Monte Carloand Valencia, ‘the Mosquito’ hasan impressive record of 26 winsfor only two losses on clay thisseason. Goes into Sunday’s titlematch a strong favourite to winhis first Grand Slam title.Route to final: First round: beatMichel Kratochvil (Switzerland) 7-5 7-5 6-4. Second round: beatNicolas Massu (Chile) 6-2 3-0 re-tired. Third round: beat 25-TimHenman (Britain) 4-6 6-2 6-4 6-2 Fourth round: beat 20-Felix Man-tilla (Spain) 6-2 6-1 6-1. Quarter-finals: beat 19-Fernando Gonzalez(Chile) 6-1 3-6 6-1 5-7 6-4.Semi-final: beat 9-Albert Costa (Spain)6-3 7-6 6-4.

Martin Verkerk (NED)Age 24 Lives: Alphen aan den Rijn.Plays: Right-handed Grand Slam titles: none Record at French Open: none

The revelation of the tourna-ment, Verkerk had not won a

match in a Grand Slam before thisyear’s French Open. But he had ameteoric rise this season by win-ning his first title in Milan to enterthe world’s top 50 for the firsttime. A real showman, who cele-brates every point like he haswon the match, he has a classicattacking style, sometimes remi-niscent of his main inspiration,former Wimbledon championRichard Krajicek. His serve is hismain weapon and he has struck112 aces on his way to the final.He is only the third Dutchman toreach a Grand Slam final.Route to the final: First round:beat Zeljko Krajan (Croatia) 6-3 6-4 6-4; Second round: beat LuisHorna (Peru) 4-6 6-4 4-6 7-5 6-2 Third round: beat 29-VincentSpadea (U.S.) 5-7 6-4 6-2 7-5 Fourth round: beat 11-RainerSchuettler (Germany) 6-3 6-3 7-5 Quarter-finals: beat 4-CarlosMoya (Spain) 6-3 6-4 5-7 4-6 8-6 Semi-finals: beat 7-Guillermo Co-ria (Argentina) 7-6 6-4 7-6.

French Open finalists at a glance

The Everest saga: It’s not just about climbingBy K Datta

A15-year-old Nepalese Sher-pa girl, Mingkipa, becomesthe youngest-ever to climb

Everest a few days after Japan’sYuichiro Miura, at 70, became theoldest to do so.The Indian Arm y puts dozens of

men on the summit. In between wealso learn of another hardyNepali, Pemba Dorjee Sherpa, 25,racing up to the top of the world ina matter of 12 hours and 45 min-utes,starting from the base campat 5, 350 metres on a Thursday af-ternoon and reaching the peak at8, 850 metres on Friday morning!All this happened in less than 10

days last month. O ver 1200 have al-ready summited the world’s high-et peak named in honour of aBritish 19th century surveyor-gen-eral of India, George Everest. Sow hy this fuss over the half-centurycelebrations of the climb of themountain by the New ZealanderE d mund Hillary,83, and TenzingNorgay (who would have been ap-

proximately 89 had he been alivetoday)? Sir Ed himself answ eredthe question in an interview withMadu Suri (TOI, M ay 22). “I be-lieve that meeting major chal-lenges and overcoming them isone ofthe most satisfying thingsw e as humans can do.Our climb of Everest stimualted

mountaineering all over thew orld,” he said, w hen asked howand why did he decided to take onthe challenge of climbing theEverest.But why,Everest? W hy this mys-

tique about it? To quote Everesthistorian W alt Unsw orth, “HadMount Everest been climbed at thefirst attempt, the achievementw ould have been hailed as notableand then quickly forgotten. It was,ironically,repeated failures whichgave the mountain real stature.”Note the word used by both

Hillary and Unsw orth is“climbed”. But the June 2, 1953edition of the Times of India an-nounced the May 29 feat of Hillaryand Tenzing with an 8-column

banner headline “Mount EverestConquered,”in a paper which costall of 2 1/2 annas — and mind youno invitation price those days.Asa youngester, I remember the“staff instruction” that quicklyfollow ed advising sub-editors thata mountain, that too one like theEverest, w as “climbed” and not

“conquered.” If anything had tobe conquered on the hard way up,it was the self and not the moun-tain.In fact, the Sherpas,themselves,

now synonymous with the Ever-est, w orshipped Sagarm atha orChomolungma, the Nepali and Ti-betan names for the mountain,with offerings of rice and incensefrom the base in the Khombu val-

ley and had not thought of climb-ing it till they discovered theycould make a living out of it.But yes, It was an 8-column

headline alright. Even though theactual report of the momentousfeat was no longer than a 100w ords. Reuters from Londonpicked up the news from a copy-right report in the “Times”, andPTI, from Kathmandu, informedus that Col. John Hunt, leader ofthe British Everest expedition,had planned the final assault forM ay 29 or 30 as a gift to QueenElizabeth on her coronation slatedfor June 2. That was about all.Those were still colonial hangoverdays,offcourse,so the ‘gift’ for theQueen can be understood.It was only after the coronation

w as over that the true worth of theHillary and Tenzing’s feat beganto sink into the public conscious-ness.And, as claimed by Sir Ed,adventure sport, not just moun-taineering alone,received a filip.But it took time for the youth tow arm up to it. Tenzing,w ho be-

came known as the “Tiger of theSnows,” began training youth inmountaineering at the HimalayanInstitute in Darjeeling. Expedi-tions to the Everest were plannedand the mountain duly climbed,not just by India’s men but also itsw omen, Bachendri Pal and San-tosh Yadav to name them, the lat-ter doing it twice.The Mihir Sens and Arati Sahas

then took up the challenge of theoceans and sw am the Palk Straitsand the English Channel. M a nyothers have follow ed in the foot-steps of Indian pioneer Everesterslike HPS Ahluwalia and Col.Chema took the plunge as the Sensand Sahas did. India also has itsround-the-world sailors and solofliers.The list has become longerwith each passing year.A dventuretrekking and white-water raftinghave become an exciting industry.Thank you, Tenzing,for all you

have done to inspire Indian youthand for putting all your ow nhardy community of sherpas onthe world map.

USA’s Lisa Raymond (L) hugs compatriot Mike Bryan after winning their mixeddoubles final against Russia’s Elena Likhovtseva and India’s Mahesh Bhuapthi inthe French Open at Roland Garros in Paris on Friday.

India to play fourTests in AustraliaMumbai: The cricket board’sTour Progra m m e and FixtureCommittee,w hich met here onSaturday, approved India’sschedule on its tour to Aus-tralia from November to Feb-ruary and the home seriesagainst New Zealand in Octo-ber this year.The board secre-tary S K Nair told reporters af-ter the meeting that Indiaw ould play four Test matchesin Australia and two Testsagainst the Kiwis at home.“ We will also be playing a

triangular One-day series withAustralia as the third teamw hich involves ten matches.Though we have finalised thedates, the venues will beknown only after the W orkingCommittee meeting to be heldin New Delhi on June 30”, hesaid.“How ever, the dates andvenues during our team’s tourof Australia have been ap-proved by the committee.W ewill also be playing a triangu-lar series with Zimbabw e asthe third team apart from fourTests at Brisbane (Nov 29-Dec1), Adelaide (Dec 12-16), Mel-bourne (Dec 26-30) and Sydney(Jan 2-6), Nair said.The itinerary for New Zealand (venues to be

declared on June 30): Sept 23: Arrival of NewZeland team. Sept 26-28:Three-day tie againstBoard President’s XI. Oct 2-4: Three-day tieagainst India “A”. Oct 8-12: 1st Test. Oct 16-20: Second Test. Tri-series: Oct 23: India vsNew Zealand; Oct 26: India vs Australia; Oct29: Australia vs New Zealand; Nov 1: India vsAustralia; Nov 3: Australia vs New Zealand; Nov6: India vs New Zealand; Nov 9: Australia vsNew Zealand; Nov 12: India vs Australia; Nov15: India vs NZ; Nov 18: Final.Itinerary for India’s tour of Australia: Nov21: Team’s departure to Australia; Nov 25-27:Three-day tie vs Victoria at Melbourne. Nov29-Dec 1: Three-day tie vs Australia “A” atBrisbane. Dec 4-8: 1st Test at Brisbane. Dec12-16: 2nd Test at Adelaide. Dec 18: One-daywarm-up tie vs Prime Minister’s XI at Canber-ra. Dec 22-20: Three-day tie vs Australia “A”at Hobart. Dec 26-30: 3rd Test at Melbourne.Jan 2-6, 2004: 4th Test at Sydney. Tri-series:Jan 9: India vs Australia; Jan 11: Australia vsZimbabwe at Sydney; Jan 14: India vs Zim-babwe at Hobart; Jan 16: Australia vs Zim-babwe at Hobart; Jan 18: India vs Australia atBrisbane; Jan 20: India vs Zimbabwe at Bris-bane; Jan 22: India vs Australia at Sydney; Jan24: India vs Zimbabwe at Adelaide; Jan 26:Australia vs Zimbabwe at Adelaide; Jan 29:Australia vs Zimbabwe at Melbourne; Feb 1:India vs Australia at Perth; Feb 3: India vs Zim-babwe at Perth; Feb 6: 1st final at Melbourne;Feb 8: 2nd final at Sydney; Feb 10: 3rd final atBrisbane (if required).Ranji Trophy grouping: Elite: Group-A:Mumbai, Baroda, Andhra, Railways, Kerala,Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi. Group-B:Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Bengal, Rajasthan, Gu-jarat, Hyderabad and Assam. Plate: Group-A:Tripura, Vidarbha, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar,Jammu and Kashmir and Haryana. Group-B:Saurashtra, Himachal Pradesh, Services, Goa,Orissa and Maharashtra.PTI

BCCI president Jagmohan Dalmiya discussing a point withSunil Gavaskar, chairman of the technical committee at thecoaches’ and captains’ conclave in Mumbai on Friday.

BCCI treads cautiously onplayers’ defection issueN ew Delhi: The CricketBoard will prefer a wait-and-watch approach to thethreat of players dumpingtheir home state units andm oving to greener pasturesin the domestic competi-tion.“ We will look into the

m atter if it develops. Atpresent we would ratherw ait and watch,” BCCIpresident JagmohanDalmiya told news agencyfrom Mumbai, w here hehad gone to attend a Boardmeeting.

Nicky Saldhana of M a-harashstra had expressedconcerns over players fro mplate division moving toelite units for better oppor-tunity in the captains andcoaches conclave on Friday.The Ranji Trophy cham-

pionship at present is divid-ed into elite and plategroups but, Saldhanafeared, the rule of import ofupto two players in a stateunit could trigger offmanyrequests for transfers in thenext season.PTI

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“Had Mount Everest beenclimbed at the first attempt,the achievement would havebeen hailed as notable andthen quickly forgotten.”