Vis-a-Vis

POPE BENEDICT XVI versus PRAKASH JAVADKAR BJP spokesperson

"There are disturbing signs of religious intolerance that have troubled some regions of India."

"There is much more freedom here than in other countries. Freedom of religion doesn't mean conversion by coercion."

EPILOGUE: Freedom of religion is now caught up in freedom of speech.

VOICES

"Parliament is sought to be run in such a way that anyone questioning the UPA or the Speaker's decisions is terrorised and bulldozed."

Vijay Malhotra, BJP leader

"The venue for (President) Bush's address was changed from Parliament House to Vigyan Bhavan to a park. Finally, he addressed India from Delhi Zoo."

Arundhati Roy, author

"Air-conditioned cars are no luxury these days. In order to ensure that ministers work properly, we are providing them this facility."

Sushil Kumar Modi, Deputy Chief Minister, Bihar

"There is no need for a villain in today's scripts because we are moving away from larger-than-life characters to realistic ones."

Ramesh Sippy, filmmaker

"If there is a cricket match, the president and the prime minister will come to watch. But nobody is interested in other sports."

Rajinder Singh Tanwar, Indian boxing coach

THE BUZZ OF THE WEEK

The BJP presidential elections were due in February 2007. But with the crucial UP elections slated around that time, the party has advanced its polls to November this year. That way, an adverse UP verdict doesn't impact the polls.

PICTURE SPEAK

INHERITOR: Feroze may be the BJP's Vidisha candidate

The leader of the Opposition L.K. Advani is said to be keen on Feroze's candidature, and so far the only objection seems to be from the chief minister himself who would like to keep the constituency and wants the party to give a ticket to his wife instead. Even last year, Advani had sought to promote young Feroze as a general secretary but this was also shot down by the rest of the BJP's GenNext.

Another young dynast, Pramod Mahajan's son Rahul, however, has not been so lucky. The BJP does not have enough MLAs in Maharashtra to swing a seat for either Mahajan's wife Rekha or Rahul. For this the BJP would need the support of the NCP. And though Sharad Pawar had a warm rapport with Mahajan, he cannot go against the wishes of his coalition partner, the Congress. Says an NCP leader, "When Sanjay Nirupam's Shiv Sena Rajya Sabha seat fell vacant last year, it was given to the NCP. Now it's the Congress party's turn."

With Prabha Rau from the Congress eyeing the same seat, it is unlikely that the party will be sympathetic. As the late Pramod Mahajan himself would have said, "you win some, you lose some".

-By Priya Sahgal

APPOINTED:

ISSUED: A fresh non-bailable warrant against UK-based Bharti Yadav, a key witness in the Nitish Katara murder case, after her father, former MP D.P. Yadav, submitted that he was unaware of his daughter's whereabouts.

GRANTED: By the Patna High Court, anticipatory bail to RJD MP Sadhu Yadav in connection with the multi-crore flood relief scam of Bihar.

WON: Five gold, two silver and three broze medals by the 11-member Indian junior boxing team at the nine-nation Moster Cup held in the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo.

The report says the ashes in Renkoji Temple, near Tokyo, do not belong to the founder of the Indian National Army. It also calls for a thorough probe into the so-called Russian connection to the controversy, which says Bose had survived the Second World War and had, in fact, been detained in a Siberian camp thereafter. However, in a bid to discourage mystery hunters who are busy writing new theories on his post-1945 movements, the panel accepted that Netaji-who would have been 109 years old in 2006-isn't alive today.

The Congress Party on its part has offered a simple explanation in its action-taken report (ATR) on the Commission's findings. Netaji's nephew and Lok Sabha member Subrata Bose laments, "That's all the Government says. It disagrees."

The All-India Forward Bloc, the BJP and other parties allege that the Government violated a statutory norm under the Commissions of Inquiries Act, 1952. The Commission had submitted its report to the Government on November 7, 2005 and the Government's ATR, along with the report, had to be placed in Parliament within six months.

However, the ATR was placed in the Lok Sabha on May 17, 2006, at a time when public attention was focused on the anti-quota agitations. The Opposition and the Forward Bloc couldn't make the Government yield as it chose the last hour on the last day (May 23) of the Budget session for a brief interaction on the report.

As for Netaji's family-which still remains divided on the crash theory-this is yet another occasion for ego clashes among members.

-By Satarupa Bhattacharjya

Index