Infiltration is down

Breaking the ice in J&K

As the national gaze shifts to J&K and its September polls, Chief Election Commissioner J.M. Lyngdoh clarified on Monday that he will take every care to ensure a free and fair election in the state. So that means muscular men in khaki will no longer ‘‘persuade’’ the reluctant to cast their votes — a charge made during earlier elections.

According the the CEC, international observers are also welcome to witness the process in their individual capacities. Whether this helped or not, later in the week the Hurriyat Conference jettisoned its own election commission idea and appeared to be more accommodative towards New Delhi generally.

As for Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, he had the last word as usual when he revealed that he was tired and wanted to leave ‘‘shitty’’ politics. Toilet paper, anyone?

What time is it?

An article on Prime Minister Vajpayee in the international weekly Time which questioned the state of his mind, not to speak of other sundry body parts like his knees, got New Delhi in high dudgeon.

Some rushed to burn copies of the magazine, others wanted it banned, Singapore style. By the end of the week, things had settled down somewhat, with the subject of the piece himself stating he felt just fine. Time passes.

President-elect’s blast off

Abdul Kalam had his first major interaction with the media. So how did he handle the landmines? Well, he dodged the Gujarat issue by making innocuous noises about how ‘‘painful’’ it was, but ran smack into another controversy by claiming the nuclear deterrence prevented war. This, to the embarrassment of his handlers, sounded like a Musharraf quote. He will have to learn a lot ‘‘on the job’’, it seems.

Banking on it

The State Bank of India, the largest commercial bank in India, has made an impressive 51.57 increase in net profit — to Rs 2,431 crore for the year ending March 2002. This jump was after making provision for non-performing assets. Meanwhile, the ING Group of the Netherlands has bought another 23.99 per cent stake in Vysya Bank Ltd for Rs 340.8 crore.

Hot Wheels

Mahindra & Mahindra has finally unveiled its much-awaited sports utility vehicle Scorpio. Pitched against Tata Sumo and Toyota Qualis, Scorpio has been priced very competitively. The base model, Scorpio Diesel Turbo 2.6, has been priced at Rs 5.5 lakh while the Euro-2 will cost Rs 5.8 lakh.