After lying low following the electoral reverses, Mr Vajpayee today exudes confidence – real or imaginary. He has tried to send adrenaline flowing through the veins of the MPs by saying that the party won’t be in Opposition for long. This may be pure pep talk, but the BJP cadres indeed need a large dose of it after the drubbing they have received.

Ms Jayalalithaa’s controversial and unpopular decisions, to which the BJP attributes the alliance’s failure for not winning a single Lok Sabha seat from Tamil Nadu, were a stark reality much before the two parties joined hands. Disregarding these and the public outcry against her administration on successive occasions, the BJP continued to drift towards Ms Jayalalithaa from the time she returned as Chief Minister in 2001. In fact, despite the DMK, MDMK and the PMK being dependable allies, the BJP showed a marked preference for the AIADMK which was a superior but non-formal ally of the NDA. The BJP deluded itself that it was on a winning wicket and, therefore, had the whip-hand in Tamil Nadu to pick and choose either regional party.

Of course, the reports from Lubeck raise many questions. The story is not a simple one. Who guided them to the fertility clinic to find out why they were not having children? Moreover, the most important question that deserves an honest answer is about the eight years they spent together as man and wife before undergoing a medical check-up. In this age of information explosion destiny produced not one but two persons who evidently knew nothing about what it really takes to get a family started. Germany is a nation where the level of general awareness is high. Besides, the couple was not living in a forest, cut off from civilisation.

In these circumstances, it was peculiar to see both the CPI and the CPM stress the importance of the Palestinian issue when the coalition partners of the UPA were drafting their common minimum programme (CMP). One even heard calls to end military collaboration with Israel. This posture emerged in the public view after the first draft of the CMP presented by the Congress made no reference to the Palestinian issue. It was in deference to these postures that the CPM proclaimed that “the UPA government reiterates India’s decades-old commitment to the cause of the Palestinian people for a homeland of their own”. It is obvious that those who drafted this formulation were somewhat ignorant of the nuances of contemporary developments. India and the international community no longer endorse the cause of a mere Palestinian “homeland”. They demand the establishment of a “viable Palestinian State”.

It is evident that on national security issues like our nuclear deterrent, nuclear disarmament and our relations with China and the United States, the two communist parties adopt postures that portray a total lack of realism and understanding of the contemporary world. They advocate that India should discard its time-tested policies of seeking nuclear disarmament exclusively on a global and non-discriminatory basis and recommend that we should yield to American and Chinese pressures by accepting regional nuclear disarmament in South Asia. They conveniently ignore the fact that it is China that has provided Pakistan the capability to manufacture nuclear weapons and has supplied our western neighbour with missiles that can devastate Indian towns and cities. They also oppose India acquiring capabilities for missile defences that could protect our cities against attacks by Chinese missiles supplied to Pakistan, should Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal fall into wrong hands.

It is a similar lack of understanding that leads the two leftist parties to their criticism of our recent policies on Arab-Israeli issues. India recognised the State of Israel in 1950. But it took over four decades before we established full diplomatic relations with Israel. In the meantime, discreet contacts were maintained with Israel in capitals like Washington and through the Israeli Consulate in Mumbai. Indira Gandhi flatly rejected a Saudi Arabian demand in 1974 that we should close the Israeli Consulate even though we were then faced with a severe balance of payments crisis. We had earlier sought and obtained arms from Israel just after the 1965 conflict with Pakistan. It is also worth mentioning that the supply of nuclear capable F-16s by the US to Pakistan in 1981 was seen as a security threat not only by India but also by pro-Israeli groups like the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which joined India in lobbying against this sale. Thus, if there is a “US-Israel-India axis”, as the CPM and the Pakistanis claim, this so-called “axis” has played an important role in promoting the understanding of India’s security concerns in the US and elsewhere.

India’s ties with Israel have expanded significantly over the past decade. Dr Manmohan Singh, Mr Arjun Singh, Mr P. Chidambaram and Mr. Sharad Pawar have visited Israel during this period. India’s annual bilateral trade with Israel has reached around $ 1.3 billion. Israel has played a key role in the conclusion of over 200 agreements for agricultural development in India in crucial areas like drip irrigation, greenhouse technology and horticulture. It is in recognition of the importance of Israeli investments and collaboration in these fields that Mr Jyoti Basu visited Israel in August 2000, just before he relinquished office.

Both China and India have developed extensive defence ties with Israel. While as a result of American pressures Israel could not sell advanced AWACS systems to China, it agreed to their sale to India. These systems mounted on Russian aircraft are crucial for India’s air defence. They are reportedly being assembled in Uzbekistan. Is the CPM going to criticise this agreement as constituting an “India-Israel-Russia-Uzbekistan axis”? It is also pertinent to stress that in view of the continuing Sino-Pak nuclear and missile nexus India should not close the option of obtaining missile defences from any source, including Israel. The Defence Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherji, has rightly rejected suggestions for a review of defence collaboration with Israel.

No foreign policy can be devoid of a moral content. Even if India has good reasons for friendship with Israel, it should not hesitate to voice its opposition to Israeli actions like the demolition of homes of innocent Palestinians. It is equally important to advise India’s Palestinian friends to curb the excesses of groups like Hamas and the Islamic Jihad. The success of Indian diplomacy would lie in being seen both by Israel and the Palestinians as a constructive voice urging moderation and seeking negotiated settlements.

Like shades of lipsticks, helmets must be available in all colours. Different helmets can be used on different days in sync with the colour of one’s scooter, dress, ear-rings, dupattas, etc.

Their designs should also be in keeping with hairstyles. Puffed helmet; the curly one; bobbed style, “joora” helmet are just some of the possibilities .

Transparent helmets should also be available through which ladies can display their latest hairstyle, ear-rings, fancy clips, latest hair bands etc, while driving.

Young girls should not resist the helmet. It serves so many purposes. Your aunties and uncles who maintain your Daily Diary Report of the guys with whom you are seen riding shall not be able to recognise you under the cover of helmet.

In case of emergency, you can use it as a weapon by throwing it at mobile snatchers or eveteasers. In the vegetable market, you need not carry extra bags. Just turn it upside down and the helmet makes a nice watermelon carrier.

Helmets with built-in mobiles should be very popular. Imagine chatting with your friends on the wheels. Similarly, helmets with radio and cassette players can keep the boredom away. May be these can also be made airconditioned.

Born on November 1, 1940, to Mr Rattan Lal Lahoti, a known advocate, freedom fighter and social worker from Guna in Madhya Pradesh, Mr Justice Lahoti has risen to occupy one of the top constitutional posts of the country on the sheer strength of his merit and hard work.

Justice Lahoti, who started his career as a lawyer in 1961, is a “stickler” to the law and is perhaps one of the few apex court judges who have the experience of working as a District and Sessions Judge, the post he got through direct recruitment in 1977. But he quit the job after about a year to start his practice as an advocate in the Madhya Pradesh High Court.

After making a mark as an advocate, specialising in constitutional, taxation, civil, labour and criminal laws, he was appointed a jugdge of the Madhya Pradesh High Court in February, 1994, transferred to the Delhi High Court in 1995 and subsequently elevated to the Supreme Court on November 15, 1998.

A thoroughly religious person, Mr Justice Lahoti has a brilliant academic record and got his masters’ degree in economics from Bombay University’s Podar College. He was awarded the gold medal by the university for topping in the LL.B examination.

Mr Justice Lahoti considers dispension of justice as a responsibility bestoved on him by the Almighty. He believes that the duty of a judge is to accomplish this godly assignment with pride, dignity and honour and has clearly spelt out the agenda he intends to implement as CJI to improve the judicial system.

It is because of this reason he believes that a CJI can enforce discipline among the fellow judges and the judges of high courts on the strength of his “moral authority” even in the absence of a law in this regard.

While assuring the countrymen that he would deal sternly with any “corrupt” element in the judiciary, he does not believe that corruption in courts is as alarming as is being made out. He says that the judicial system should not be described corrupt because of certain aberrations, which can be corrected with prompt and stern action.

Several senior lawyers, who had the opportunity of working with him, say Justice Lahoti is “humble, down-to-earth, a good human being and a brilliant gentleman judge”.

Robust common sense, an insight into the law, the courage of conviction and vision are the hallmarks of his judgements, but the verdicts are always with a humane approach. While he believes in upholding the finest judicial tradition, he treads on the correct path of defining the judge-made laws, they say.

Among his priorities are the setting up of a National Judicial Academy for training of judicial officers and research in the field of law, computerisation of courts’ functioning and popularising the system of mediation and conciliation in resolving civil disputes, which linger on in courts for decades.

Though Mr Justice Lahoti has delivered several landmark judgments, his recent verdict defining the powers of the Supreme Court and the high courts has been highly acclaimed in legal circles. This question came before his Bench when the Patna High Court, in an unprecedented move, had raised questions over the powers of the apex court when it had summoned certain records relating to a case from it.

Mr Justice Lahoti in his judgement has, for the first time, clearly laid down future references as what should be the relations between the Supreme Court and the high courts, legal experts say.

He believes that there is no need for the power of “superintendence” over the functioning of the high courts as it neither has been defined in the Constitution, nor was it the intent of its framers. If this is allowed to be so, it will amount to curtailing the powers of high courts whose jurisdication under Article 226 is identical to that of the the Supereme Court. Of course, the appellate power of the apex court is final and non-challengable, he says.

He has described the relations between the apex court and the high courts as those of “elder and younger brothers” by laying down that “the framers of the Constitution did not think it necessary to specially confer power on the Supreme Court to give a command to the high courts for they were the men of vision and farsight and knew that the constitutional functionaries and institutions would act in the best interest of norms and traditions consistent with democracy.”

Among his notable judgments are those on the welfare and compulsory education of children, striking down the reservations in super speciality professional courses which he delivered in the All India Institute of Medical Sciences students’ case, defining the duty of senior bureaucrats in the Tarlochan Dev Sharma case and upholding the law passed by the the Haryana Government to ban the contesting of panchayat elections by those having more than two children.

Besides, he had headed two important inquiry commissions that investigated the cheating of hundreds of people by the Skipper Construction Company in the Capital on the promise of providing cheaper flats to them and the Charkhi-Dadri mid-air collision in 1996.

I’d never suffered it myself until I moved to New Mexico for four years in the Seventies, where the unfamiliar, exotic cottonwood pollen had a field day, if you’ll excuse the pun, with my respiratory system.

Fortunately, I was studying Chinese medicine at the time and regulating the condition became a pet project for my teacher, who, being the utter genius he was, sorted it so effectively I’ve never been troubled by more than the hint of a tickle ever since, even when the pollen count soars.

I subsequently employed his method, which essentially boils down to filling a teapot, in my own healing practice over the years and found it to be equally effective when treating others, no matter the actual airborne allergen involved.

This is because it works on building the resistance in general, and not only could it help you considerably if prone to hay fever but could also be of overall benefit in boosting your immune response in general.

According to the style of Taoist medicine I was taught, it’s your kidney energy that lies at the root of your ability to resist external pernicious elements of any kind, whether airborne or otherwise and at this time of year, as always, nature herself, provides the perfect remedy: stinging nettles.

Wearing gloves if you like, though it’s not essential, pick off the uppermost leaves, as, apart from being hardly stingy at all, these are the freshest and most full of healing energy. Two or three plants’ worth, or sufficient to fill a small paper bag, will be enough to make a pot of strong tea, which is approximately one day’s dose. It’s preferable to pick them every day but picking enough for the week ahead is a good second best.

Meanwhile, your relationship with the physical world and your body’s capacity for effectively processing external stimuli, such as allergens, and subsequently stabilising itself, is governed, say the Taoists, by your spleen energy, for which a most effective natural stimulant at this time of year is honey, preferably locally produced, as this also seems to provide a quasi-homeopathic effect on the system, honey being produced from local pollen. Hence why it’s not just self-indulgent to plonk at least two teaspoons’ worth in each cup of nettle tea you drink.

On the frontline of this campaign, though, are your lungs, whose energy supports your breathing apparatus and membranous tissue (hence the itchy eyes). Mullein (from herb shops) is highly effective for supporting your lung energy and opening up your breathing passages. It also happens to make you feel extremely clear-minded, as opposed to the mental fuzziness that normally accompanies hay fever. You can either make a fresh pot of tea with it, or simply add it in equal measure to the nettles.