Newsreel: 17.11.02

• In this case, the Captain sinks his own ship as Punjab CM Amarinder Singh stakes all — including his reputation and administration — on the SGPC polls and loses everything. Parkash Singh Badal brings his men on a chartered flight into an Amritsar that is under police siege and walks out with all SGPC posts, including that of president.

Left without answers, Amarinder claims the Congress had no interest in the elections at all. No interest, apart from ensuring that no Badal man made it to the poll venue

• The Government adds stink to its petrol pump allotment stain when the 30 representative cases it presents before the court in the scam do not include even one where political links were involved. The SC isn’t fooled and gives the Government a week to give a revised list including the cases investigated by the Express. As for the Centre, it continues to insist the 30 cases were picked at random, that there was no ‘‘pick and choose’’.

• At least there is some relief in UP for the BJP, where not only do the Rajya Sabha elections conclude as per its hopes — discounting, of course, roughing up of candidate Suresh Nanda — but the Speaker also issues notices to the rebels.

• Mufti Mohammed Sayeed gets Central nod to continue his attempts for peace in J-K through release of activists. While apprehensions are expressed when Yasin Malik is let off, the Centre indicates it won’t be interfering. The BJP voices some doubts, but even its state unit gives a thumbs-up to the new CM.

• Fifteen years and finally, a special court orders framing of charges against the Hinduja brothers and the Swedish gun manufacturers Bofors in the payoff scandal on grounds of prima-facie evidence.

• Another week, another MiG crashes, this time in Bagdogra in Siliguri. Both the pilots die after the plane breaks into pieces. Defence Minister George Fernandes says initial reports indicate the ‘‘pilots couldn’t judge the altitude’’ and again points out that experts have not noticed any defects in the MiG to warrant its high accident rate. Just to put a figure on this rate, 16 IAF fighters have crashed this year. Of these 11 were MiG-21s.

• Environmentalists worry for Indian elephants as the UN lifts a 13-year-old ban to allow selective sale of African ivory, providing an opening to smugglers looking to move out tusks from here.

To understand the threat, it may be useful to remember that Indian tusker population is down from 26,000 to 12,000 and that the ban was imposed in 1989 after the elephant numbers in Africa fell from 12 lakh to 6 lakh in just over a decade.

• Laloo Prasad Yadav has a midnight knock of a different kind this week as an ardent loyalist, albeit drunk, sneaks into his bedroom at 12.30 am, past three tiers of security and starts massaging his feet. Even Laloo is shaken at this display of sycophancy. The 50-year-old RJD worker from Bhojpur is cooling his heels in jail.

• In a major reform in the financial sector, the Government decides to corporatise the country’s biggest financial institution, the Industrial Development Bank of India. IDBI will also be converted from a development financial institution to a universal bank. The Cabinet will be repealing the IDBI Act in the coming winter session of Parliament in this regard.

• In China, Jiang Zemin steps down but keeps the reins of power in his hands. In Iraq, Saddam Hussein tries to hang on to them by agreeing to the UN resolution giving him one last chance to disarm, but without losing any of his bluster. The letter to the UN says Bush is orchestrating ‘‘the biggest and most wicked slander against Iraq’’, supported by ‘‘lackey’’ Blair, and warns that if ‘‘our people are not spared harm’’, Iraq won’t stand by and watch.

• Unruly crowds rather than crowded itinerary seems to have become the latest headache for Indian cricket. India are declared winners of the third One-Day International against West Indies under the D&W rule after crowd trouble. In other matches, Pakistan beat Zimbabwe in the first Test at Harare, Sri Lanka lose the opening Test in South Africa while Australia win the first Ashes Test.