GORY IVORY: One of the elephants killed in 2000

At the Jim Corbett Tiger Reserve, in Uttaranchal, it's a long wait for justice. After a spate of elephant poaching incidents in October-November 2000, forest officials launched a grand plan to meet the shortfall in personnel, vehicles, arms and equipment. More than a year later, the high-sounding Operation Lord has changed nothing. Though official figures put the toll at five, unofficial estimates suggested that 10 elephants were killed then, and the poaching still continues.

"We sanctioned Rs 3.24 crore for the reserve, an unprecedented amount," says S.C. Sharma, additional director-general, Wildlife, Ministry of Environment and Forests. The ministry has released Rs 1.85 crore, but the bulk of this has not yet reached the park. Says Corbett Field Director D.V.S. Khati: "The park has received only Rs 98 lakh. The rest is locked with the state Government.Which means that we cannot buy equipment or fuel for our vehicles, both of which we desperately need." The additional 270 ground staff hired to assist the foresters have not received their wages since November 2001.

Corbett is still vulnerable, of that there is little doubt. Two tigers died in suspicious circumstances close to the reserve in January this year. And while the pachyderms remain unprotected, the poachers have not been caught.

-Prerna Singh Bindra

The pollster who gets the results of a pre-election survey wrong has a ready-made excuse: the findings are a pre-poll snapshot whose details can change with imponderables like the late swing, variable turnout and what is quaintly called "booth management". Not so the exit polls. These record a situation after the event and the margin of error is supposed to be minuscule. So what happened to those polls that exaggerated the BJP showing in Uttar Pradesh and the Congress performance in Punjab and got the Uttaranchal outcome all wrong?

The charitable and academic explanation is that their sampling was all wrong and didn't follow the random route-they surveyed those who were convenient rather than representative. The uncharitable version is that voters regard pollsters as meddlesome busybodies and lie through their teeth.

Whatever the truth, the pollsters conducted a virtual election while voters gave their actual verdict. Indignant politicians now demand a ban on opinion polls. That would be too drastic a measure for number crunchers who inject the grim reality of a fractious democracy with a dose of well-ordered fiction.

SIGNPOSTS

AWARDED: The British Film and Television Academy Fellowship Award, to producer Ismail Merchant (above), director James Ivory and scriptwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.

APPOINTED: Ronen Sen, as India's next high commissioner to the UK. He is currently ambassador to Germany.

APPOINTED: Anoop Singh, as director for Special Operations at the IMF. He is former adviser to the RBI governor.

DIED: Jag Pravesh Chandra, 89, veteran Congress leader, freedom fighter, journalist and former chief executive councillor of Delhi.

AWARDED: The University of Michigan's Visiting Professorship Award to MP Shabana Azmi for her contribution to art, society and politics.

ELECTED: From the Kanakapura Lok Sabha seat, former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda.