Vis-a-Vis

AJIT JOGI Congress MP and former Chhattisgarh chief minister versus RAJIV SHUKLA Congress spokesman

"We respectfully beg Sonia Gandhi to respect the people's mandate and take over as the prime minister."

"It is just a move by an individual that has the backing of neither the AICC nor the Congress party high command."

EPILOGUE: Sidelined by the party, Jogi has found his comeback strategy misfiring badly.

VOICES

"Today Kanshi Ram is Mayawati's captive and she has turned the BSP into a Brahmin party. She has nothing to do with Dalits."

Ram Vilas Paswan, president, Lok Janshakti Party

"I have given Mulayam Singh Yadav three months' time to address all the problems of the Muslim community. If he does not, it will be his doom."

Muhammed Yaqoob Qureishi, minority affairs minister, Uttar Pradesh

"We are a democracy, not a banana republic. The students' issues can be resolved."

Rahul Gandhi, Congress MP

"I find Tests far more interesting, they are more of a chess game. I do think you see the best cricket in Tests and I like the fact that you can play for five days and no one wins."

Sir Elton John, singer

"The challenge lies in doing something different each time. After Bend It Like Beckham, I could have done another football film. But there is no challenge in doing the done."

Gurinder Chadha, filmmaker

THE BUZZ OF THE WEEK

The line-up of CEOs and CFOs headed for Kolkata for the swearing-in ceremony of Buddhadeb Bhattacharya is proof that despite his Marxist credentials, the West Bengal chief minister is the darling of India Inc.

PICTURE SPEAK

UNEASY: Gogoi with Mahilary(left)

The BPPF (H), which secured 11 seats and helped the Congress retain power in the state, has already made its plans clear. It will pick up the threads from where the All Assam Students' Union and the Asom Gana Parishad had left them off to fight for solutions to long-standing problems. These include the issues of infiltration by foreigners and the setting up of the autonomous Bodo Territorial Council and giving it authority to deal with the Centre on issues like Central funds, land, water and wildlife. The BPPF (H) will also press for withdrawal of all cases related to insurgency, violence and mass killings against the cadres and armed guerrillas of the outfit.

The most worrisome demand will be for the creation of a Bodoland in the Karbi Anglong region, which is not only an autonomous area but is also dominated by Karbis who have traditionally been in conflict with Bodos. For the moment, though, neither the Congress high command nor Gogoi is looking at distant troubles; they are just happy that an alliance has been sewn up.

-By Farzand Ahmed

ELECTED: K. Rahman Khan, Rajya Sabha MP from Karnataka, deputy chairman of the Rajya Sabha for the second consecutive term. Khan, 67, a ca by profession, was earlier chairman of the Karnataka legislative council.

SENTENCED: Bir Singh Mahato, Forward Bloc MP from Purulia (West Bengal), and three others, to 10 years' RI in a 24-year-old gang-rape case, by a Purulia court. Mahato failed to get a stay on his conviction from the Supreme Court.

SCALED: Mount Everest, by a seven-member team of the ITBP. The paramilitary force conquered the peak in 1992 and 1996 too.

PICTURE SPEAK

COVER-UP: Soldiers removing a victim's body

Among the accused officers is a brigadier, a lieutenant-colonel, two majors and a subedar who worked for the counter-insurgent 7 Rashtriya Rifles of the army. The five had claimed in an fir (No. 15/2000) filed at the Achabal police station that they had engaged "foreign terrorists" in a prolonged encounter in the Pathribal forests which had ended with the elimination of five "foreign mercenaries". The carnage had come after the brutal massacre of 35 Sikhs in Chittisinghpura on March 20, 2000 when former US president Bill Clinton was in India on an official visit.

The state government of the time, headed by Farooq Abdullah, had formed a one-man commission to probe the incident comprising retired Supreme Court judge Justice S.R. Pandian. He quit his job midway saying the state authorities were not cooperating. The CBI was entrusted with the enquiry in late 2002 and it registered the case in February 2003.

In the meantime, a DNA test established beyond doubt that the slain were locals. Agitated relatives, who had all along been claiming that the victims were lifted from their homes and later framed as "foreign terrorists", stand vindicated.

-By Aijaz Hussain

PICTURE SPEAK

Amarinder Singh

-By Ramesh Vinayak

CHENNAI As many as 24 suicides in less than 72 hours is the kind of statistic that would send any sociologist into a tizzy. Those taking the extreme step over the weekend were AIADMK workers distraught over Amma's rout in the Tamil Nadu polls. Party chief J. Jayalalithaa has announced that the families of each of the deceased will get Rs 50,000 from party funds. And tried to soothe passions by saying that "winning and losing are part of the electoral game".

-By S.S. Jeevan

Index