Inside Track

Guests made their way through a series of courses: soup, Amritsari fish, karai ghosh, seekh kabab, tintin (liver and kidneys), paya (trotters), Lahori chicken (chicken cooked in channa), chops, sarson da saag, biryani, dam aloo, firni, shahi tukda, kulfi, faluda, fruits and much more.

The courteous waiters kept urging the guests to taste at least a small portion of every dish. A dazzled guest contrasted their hospitality with the brusque manners of the Rashtrapati Bhawan waiters who automatically whisk away the plates the moment the indicator light changes regardless of whether the guest is in the midst of the course. In what seems a hangover from their colonial heritage — when it was assumed that the natives might need lessons in table manners — the waitersonly speak when they have to instruct the Indian guests. Such as asking them to pull their chairs closer to the table or informing that the bowl of water with a rose petal is not meant for washing one’s fingers but the fruit.

Star stuck?

Media magnate Rupert Murdoch’s ruthlessness in sacking employees is legendary. The long list of high-profile victims include editors Harold Evans and Andrew Neil who compensated for their pain at parting by writing tell-all bestsellers.

In the case of the axing of Star TV’s chief executive officer (CEO) Ratikant Basu, Murdoch has been less harsh. Basu who left government to join Star on a reported annual salary of Rs 1.25 crore plus sundry other perks such as staying in a Rs 8-crore house in Mumbai and a Mercedes at his disposal, has been kicked downwards and made executive chairman of News TV, India.

If Murdoch is treading with uncharacteristic gentleness and has appointed no replacement as CEO of Star, India, it is because he cannot afford any morecomplications right now. His only hope of recouping the millions he has poured into his Indian venture is by introducing the DTH service.

All it needs is for the government to revoke a notification banning the entry of DTH, which was issued last year courtesy Jaipal Reddy and former Cabinet Secretary T.S.R. Subramanian. Considering that the I&B Minister Pramod Mahajan’s good friend Pramod Mittal of Ispat has become a partner in Murdoch’s DTH division with a $200-million capital, Murdoch has reason to be hopeful that DTH will finally get the nod.

The problem is that the decision to revoke the DTH notification rests not with Mahajan alone but with the group of ministers including Yashwant Sinha, Jagmohan, George Fernandes and L.K. Advani. It is a moot point whether the other four will go along with Mahajan’s railroading methods.

Backward movement

Why has Uma Bharati suddenly been given independent charge of her minor portfolios in the HRD ministry? There is no love lost between her and the PMsince she is openly critical of the government. Nor is it meant as a snub to HRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi, who is riding high these days with the RSS capitalising on L.K. Advani’s faux pas in announcing governor S.S. Bhandari’s transfer from Bihar.

It seems the real reason is that the PM and the BJP are nervous about retaining their OBC vote bank.

UP Chief Minister Kalayan Singh’s detractors conveyed back to Delhi that Sonia’s recent rally in Lucknow was very successful thanks to the large number of OBCs who attended. They charged that Kalyan had helped secretly in swelling the rally’s numbers to show his discontent with his party. The reports did not have the effect that Kalyan’s Brahmin party foes had hoped for. Lucknow is Vajpayee’s constituency and it was felt that OBC leaders like Kalyan and Uma must be mollified at any cost rather than penalised.

First foul?

It happens all the time in polling booths, but it was the first time in Parliament’s 50-year-old history that the authenticty ofan MP’s vote was questioned.

Last week during the vote on the crucial Bihar motion in the Lok Sabha there was considerable confusion. Many electronic voting machines were faulty and so several MPs were permitted to send in handwritten vote slips instead. The disputed Congress vote slip might have gone undetected, except that several members insisted that the concerned MP Ghani Khan Chaudhary was not present in Parliament that night.

Opposition leader Sharad Pawar maintained that Chaudhary might have quietly slipped away after voting. But considering that the doors were closed and the ailing Chaudhary is rather conspicuous as he has to be assisted, this seemed rather far fetched.

Minister for Parliamentary Affairs P.R. Kumaramangalam demanded that the signature on the slip be tallied with Chaudhary’s specimen signature to authenticate the vote, but it was past 11 p.m. and the MPs were in a hurry to go home. There were cries of shame, shame’ from the treasury benches and Jaswant Singh was heard remarkingin horror, “This is simply not on.”