JANU. IT was the short-name (user name) for his E-mail ID on the Net. Not many perhaps would like to use it as a term of endearment for him. D-company’s boss and the most notorious criminal in the subcontinent, Dawood Sheikh Ibrahim Kaskar, alias Dawood Ibrahim, however, wanted to log on as simply janu---which in Urdu is often used in a lovey-dovey sort of fashion by couples to address each other. It is derived from jaan, meaning life.

Building a nation sans jingoism
by Amar Nath Wadehra & Randeep Wadehra
NATIONAL integration is a perennial process that demands a sustained supply of material, emotional and spiritual inputs. It involves mutual understanding and a continuous dialogue among the various segments of the polity. It is a prerequisite for nation building.

Information as power
by Alok Verma
NO government can now rely on the ignorance. We live in a world in which media and communications are all around us, they travel with us wherever we go and, increasingly, a single device will combine many different functions.

In pursuit of precious pearls
by Veryam Kaur Trewn & Trilochan Singh Trewn
FOR thousands of years, a pearl has been an object of decoration for both men and women, a precious marine gem found by human beings from oysters from seabed and riverbeds. A natural pearl is a concretion formed by a mollusc consisting of the same material (called nacre or mother of pearls) as the mollusc’s shell.

ON THE SANDS OF TIME — 1981
The year of blockbusters and potboilers
by M.L. Dhawan
IN Yash Chopra’s Silsila, Amitabh Bachchan gives up Rekha for Jaya Bhaduri, who is the prospective mother of the child of his dead brother Shashi Kapoor. Rekha marries Sanjeev Kumar. While the lovers meet and even elope, their spouses suffer in silence.

Raising a toast to apple trees
by Roshni Johar
KINGS, presidents, ambassadors and such elite often raise and clink their crystal champagne-filled stem glasses at banquets, to drink a toast to peace and goodwill among nations or even a long life on imperial or royal birthdays or toast any occasion, the protocol may demand.

Matters of protocol
by K.R.N. Swamy
THE Protocol Department of the British Government had a problem.It was 1901, just after the demise of Queen Victoria and quite a number of Indian maharajas were coming to attend the coronation of her successor King Edward VII. Where should they keep the Indian rulers in the royal processions?