Q 1. Maneka Gandhi has written to the International Olympic Committee against...

a. Allowing the Chinese to serve dog meat to the South Korean team in the 2008 Games.
b. Including rodeo events in the Olympics.
c. Releasing doves close to the Olympic flame.

Q 2. Afghanistan has requested India to immediately send...

a. Thermal underwear for the winter.
b. Nuclear scientists.
c. Musical instruments.

Q 3. The radio channel launched by Sushma Swaraj to counter Pakistani propaganda is called...

a. Radio Jhootistan.
b. Satyawani (Voice of Truth).
c. India Calling.

Answers: 1(b), 2(c), 3(a)

CINEMA
Directing With the Enemy

The Brits have been taking a beating for some time now. Mel Gibson singlehandedly battled them in Braveheart and The Patriot. Thrashed on the cricket field in Lagaan, they're the baddies in two upcoming Bhagat Singh biopics. Now get set to watch the blighters take another beating from desi bravehearts. Producer Ajey Jhankar has turned the Battle of Wadgaon, Mahadji Scindia's crushing defeat of the British in 1779, into the script for an ambitious global movie project tentatively titled The Invaders. Jhankar has also managed to convince British director Roland Joffe, maker of classics like The Killing Fields and City of Joy into directing it. Hollywood veteran Peter Rawley is executive producer. The film is to start shooting in nine months for a fall 2003 release and will be made in English, Hindi and Marathi. Joffe says it's going to be an early peep at the clash of two civilisations. But a British director making a film on a British defeat? "Brits love being defeated. I don't know of another country which celebrates Dunkirk (the British pullout from France in World War II)," he says.

-Sandeep Unnithan

MUSIC
The Famous Five To Be

Valentine's Day is D-Day for The five good looking young men being marketed as India's first boy band. "A Band of Boys" will see that day the release of its labour of love, a first yet-unnamed album. Till then it's preparation time; for this test the stars to be (Siddharth Haldipur, Chin2 Bhosle, Sudanshu Pandey, Sherrin Varghese, Karan Oberoi) must sing and dance at venues across the country. They must also continue to train with their six gurus, including singers Hariharan and Leslie Lewis, in skills as disparate as Hindustani classical and aerobics.

More than 200 boys auditioned for the band. The marketing push says these fellows are set to "whip their fans into a hormonally charged frenzy". How that will square with one of the fashionable causes they intend to espouse-population control-is among the unanswered questions about A Band of Boys right now.

-Samrat Choudhury

CHRISTMAS MUSIC
Swar SAngam (Virgin; Rs 100) Amaan and Ayaan Ali Bangash play raga Pooriya Kalyana and Rageshwari on sarod.	Baul songs (Music Today; Rs 65) The best-known Baul music exponent Purna Das Baul sings 11 numbers.	I love Cinema-II (Universal; Rs 55) This volume has a good mix of nine film songs including Kasme vaade, Jaane do na.	World Cafe (Milestone; Rs 125) Experimental music fusing Indian and other traditional music from around the world.