January-February Is the season considered auspicious for weddings. And among other things, weddings mean buying gold. Last year, over 490 tonnes of the yellow metal were sold in India. But the results of a survey, released in December, show that when buying gold-which costs Rs 400-460 per gram-consumers lost out on almost Rs 10,000 crore every year. Conducted nationwide in the last quarter of 2001 by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) in association with local consumer organisations, the survey's aim was to ascertain adulteration in gold ornaments.

Pure gold is "24 carat" but is too soft to work on. So Indians prefer the 22 carat gold that has been strengthened with an alloy. The survey, however, found that what is sold as 22 carat was actually anything from 15 to 20 carat. Of the 15 samples tested at Mumbai 12 (80 per cent) were adulterated; the figure was 86 per cent for Delhi. Gold ornaments made in Jaipur showed 91 per cent purity while those from Hyderabad had 65 per cent purity. This means buyers paid one-thirds more than the quoted price. On average, buyers were losing out on around 15 per cent value in gold purchases. The BIS survey included Zaveri Bazar, the main retailing outlet for precious metals in Mumbai, and posh south Delhi shops, the implication being that cheating does not depend on the size of the establishment.

Of an estimated one lakh jewellery shops in the country, the globally accepted hallmark certification guaranteeing the quality of precious metals is available only in about 250. Hallmarking adds just 1 per cent to the price of jewellery, says BIS. It had warned the RBI as far back as 1997 that gold items were adulterated. But as long as buyers do not demand guarantee checks, the golden rip-off will continue.

-Sakuntala Narasimhan

Band Stand: It's a first in the parliamentary history of India, which has no precedence of regional (or arguably, any other kind of) cooperation among MPs from different parties. Over a third of the 54 MPs of both Houses from the four north Indian states of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab have decided to band together for the development of the region. Among their demands: doubling the rail track between Jalandhar and Jammu Tawi, introduction of a uniform tax structure in the region, establishment of an international airport in Chandigarh, a fruit and vegetable market in Haryana near the Delhi border, and diagnostic centres of Chandigarh's Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences in each of the four states.

Bin Laden's Man in Bihar: Police in Bhagalpur, Bihar, are looking into the antecedents of Mohammad Tahir who was arrested by Jammu police on December 24 along with a terrorist called Raja Qamar Ayub belonging to the Al Qaida terrorist network. Tahir, a maulvi, was reportedly acting as a conduit for Al Qaida. Police say Tahir may be one of the suspected members of the Harkat-ul-Ansar who escaped from the custody of the Hyderabad Police in 1993.

Atal Blows His Candles: To celebrate Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee's birthday, a day somewhat more famous as Christmas, Minister of State in the PMO Vijay Goel came up with a birthday card that Vajpayee did not and, possibly, could not quite receive. The 30ft x 48ft plywood creation was built over 10 days and stood outside the Red Fort for two days so as to be signed by at least 1,00,000 people. The event managers, Show Craft, also sent a model of the card to 7 Race Course Road.

In the evening, Goel took sycophancy to lyrical levels by organising a kavi sammelan. Also released was a book of poems by Vajpayee, translated into English by diplomat Pavan Varma.

"I never thought I would be recognised as a poet," Vajpayee confessed. How perceptive of Mr Goel.