The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

	If not EVMs, the people Advani can still lead the losers’ club LAL Krishna Advani is known to rely on faith when it comes to his own beliefs and leadership. But when it comes to the question of accountability for leading his party to defeat, he would rather blame the EVMs. Self-doubt is not one of his attributes. Otherwise, he would not have ridden the rath that ultimately led to the demolition of the Babri Masjid. He still does not know where he went wrong. Now that he has more time on hand, he wants to demolish the reputation of EVMs, which did not bring him to power at the Centre. He would not thank the EVMs that voted him for the Lok Sabha from Gandhinagar. Advani’s misgivings over the EVMs are shared by other political leaders, who are in the opposition, whatever its complexion. Sukhbir Badal, for example, questioned the credibility of the EVMs barely 48 hours before these machines made him win by an overwhelming margin of 80,000 votes in Jalalabad. With his victory, the EVMs have also won, but Sukhbir Badal would not admit it now. Lalu Prasad Yadav, Ram Vilas Paswan, J. Jayalalithaa and Chandrababu Naidu—they all think they are always right, but it is the machines that failed them in the elections. And now even Sitaram Yechuri of the CPM finds himself on Advani’s side in the men-vs-machine debate. The losers’ club has no ideological boundaries, afterall. All these gentlemen and the lady from Poes Garden find the ballot paper more trustworthy. It may be that the losers will pass a resolution asking the Election Commission to come out with a gadget that gives Advani and other members of the club an assured victory. Now when the EC has openly demonstrated the functioning of the EVMs to prove the sceptics wrong, Messrs Advani & Co wouldn’t know who to blame for their electoral debacle. Maybe, they will now say it is the people who are at fault.
	Death of Baitullah Terrorists have no right to live THE cause of fighting terrorism has got a boost with the death of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) chief Baitullah Mehsud in a US drone attack last Wednesday in South Waziristan. Baitullah’s disappearance from the scene may lead to the Taliban in Pakistan getting split into various factions as was the situation before December 2007 when he emerged as the top leader of the infamous terrorist movement. He had brought the numerous Taliban factions together under his command with the use of force and treachery. Now it will be easier for the Pakistan Army to eliminate the Pakistani leg of the Taliban if it is determined to do so. The Taliban in Pakistan grew into a major terrorist movement mainly because of the unimaginative policies of Islamabad. Every time the Pakistan government entered into a deal with those controlling the extremist network, Islamabad provided the Taliban an opportunity to become stronger and more broadbased. The Taliban has mainly fed itself on anti-Americanism, but Gen Pervez Musharraf’s mishandling of the Lal Masjid crisis helped it under the leadership of young Baitullah of the Mehsud tribe to emerge as a more serious threat to peace and stability in Pakistan and the rest of South Asia. Now that Baituallah is killed, it is time for Pakistan to ensure that all the other terrorist chieftains and their networks, too, are wiped out. Concentrating on the Taliban alone is not enough to win the war against terrorism. The crimes of Jihad Council chief Syed Salahuddin and Jamaat-ud-Dawa founder Hafiz Saeed are no less than Baitullah. At a time when the public in Pakistan has little sympathy for those indulging in terrorism in the name of jihad, the terrorist outfits must be destroyed in a manner so that they are never able to re-emerge. This is as much in the interest of peace and progress in Pakistan as of the entire region.
	Thought for the Day When people feel deeply, impartiality is bias. — Lord Reith
	Corrections and clarifications The front page headline “ Gotra row claims 2 more lives in Haryana” (First edition, August 7) was misleading because the killing was not related to a row over the ‘Gotra’ or clan but because the boy and the girl, the report said, were found together in a room. The headline “ Society to launch awareness project” (Page 9, August 8) should have made it clear that the report dealt with camps to detect cancer early. In the report, “ India, China start boundary talks” (Page 2, August 8), it should have read, ‘ New Delhi has been cut up with China…” in the text. In the report, “ IRB to be deployed in J & K soon” (Page 7, August 8), it should have been “India” Reserve Battalion and not “Indian”. Despite our earnest endeavour to keep The Tribune error-free, some errors do creep in at times. We are always eager to correct them. This column will now appear thrice a week — every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. We request our readers to write or e-mail to us whenever they find any error. Readers in such cases can write to Mr Kamlendra Kanwar, Senior Associate Editor, The Tribune, Chandigarh, with the word “Corrections” on the envelope. His e-mail ID is kanwar@tribunemail.com. H.K. Dua Editor-in-Chief

ARTICLE

Dealing with Pakistan
India should join others in containment drive
by K. Subrahmanyam

THERE is a lot of discussion in India, the US and elsewhere on how to deal with Pakistan, bring about peace in the Pakistan-Afghanistan area and eliminate the scourge of terrorism. Various solutions, from negotiating with the Taliban to a Camp David type solution between India and Pakistan have been advocated. These discussions ignore the reality on the ground, the Pakistan Army's ambitions and the sense of manifest destiny among large sections of the Army, the establishment, civil society and the general population.

Pakistan is a nuclear-armed nation, with an Army dominating its politics and foreign policy. The Army considers itself as the guardian of Pakistani ideology, the two-nation doctrine which is the original version of the clash of civilisations thesis. The Army has developed a global strategy of using terrorism as an instrument of expansionism. Using the strategy of asymmetric warfare (terrorism) it felt it could wrest Kashmir from India, bleed India, through a thousand cuts and compel the US to leave Muslim lands.

Pakistan started its terror campaign in Kashmir in 1989, after having assembled its nuclear weapon. In May 1990, the Chinese tested the Pakistani weapon at Lop Nor. The Pakistan Army started talking about "strategic defiance" vis-a-vis the US. In 1993, Pakistanis attacked the CIA headquarters and the World Trade Center. In 1994 the Pakistan Army installed the Taliban in Afghanistan. In 1996, Osama bin Laden came to Afghanistan.

The International Islamic Front against Crusaders (Westerners) and Zionists was established in the Pak-Af region. Then followed the attacks on the US embassies in Dar-es-Salaam and Nairobi and the US ship, Cole. Finally it culminated in the 9/11 attack on the US which was planned in Pakistan by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and money for the hijackers was remitted on instructions from Pakistan. The jihadis trained in Pakistan have carried out attacks in London, Bali, India and elsewhere.

Ms Hillary Clinton admitted during her TV interview in Delhi that 9/11 was planned in Pakistan. British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown said on the TV in Pakistan that in 75 per cent of the terrorist cases in Britain the trails led to Pakistan. Yet both the US and the UK are engaging Pakistan and even financing it generously instead of confronting it for its terrorist acts against these countries. The underlying reason for this is that Pakistan is a nuclear-weapon state and not a responsible one at that, having proliferated to Iran, North Korea and Libya. Therefore, they have to handle it carefully and steer it towards being a responsible moderate, Islamic state. For this the US and its allies are depending on the democratic institutions and the civil society of Pakistan and the inherent contradictions between the jihadi groups and the Army itself.

The US leverage to persuade the Pakistan Army to act against jihadi groups is economic through military and development aid. Without that aid Pakistan will find it difficult to function as a viable state in the present circumstances. Under such compulsions the Pakistan Army has started operations against the Taliban and this has resulted in a large number of internally displaced persons. That makes international aid even more of a vital need.

At the same time, within Pakistan jihadis have intensified their own terrorist operations against the state and the Army. Differences have surfaced between the US and the Pakistan Army on the overall US strategy in the Af-Pak region. The US has intensified its campaign in Afghanistan to contain Pakistan and Pakistan-aligned forces from extending themselves in Afghanistan. The US and its allies are also strengthening their communication and electronics intelligence capabilities in the region which are likely to hamper the terrorist activities of the ISI-directed jihadi operations.

The basic US strategy appears to be to contain Pakistan, compel the Army to fight some jihadi groups, create an impression of the Pakistan Army fighting on US directions which may antagonise other jihadi groups against the state and the Army, strengthen the democratic institutions and slowly establish the civil government's control over the Army. They may not succeed in this and the Army may assert itself and confront the US and the international community. While the Pakistan Army may be calculating that the Americans may tire out and exit from the Af-Pak area in the next two to three years, the moment of choice for the Pakistan Army, whether they will fight against jihadis to the end or circumvent that responsibility, is likely to arise in the next few months. Already, US Special Envoy Holebrook has voiced his reservations about the Swat campaign.

Unlike the seven years of the Bush Administration when Gen Pervez Musharraf could get away by producing, in Obama's words, mixed results, the present administration has compelled the Pakistan Army to act. With a surge of forces in Afghanistan and maintaining continuous economic and political pressure on Pakistan, the US and its NATO allies must have an overall strategy. Ms Clinton in her speech on June 17 talked about a common strategy between India and the US to deal with the common threat of terrorism.

Though India has been a victim of Pakistani terrorism, war is not an option to deal with nuclear-armed Pakistan, as accepted by the US and the UK. It is not possible for India to exercise the degree of pressure the US and NATO can exert on Pakistan. The threat faced by India, the US and the UK is the same though they may vary in degree. It, therefore, makes sense for India, to adopt a common strategy with the US and NATO to contain Pakistan and to steer it towards a moderate Islamic state. While the US was not forthcoming in regard to intelligence sharing till 26/11, there has been a significant improvement in that respect after the Mumbai attack and there are indications that the cooperation in intelligence sharing will improve further in the light of the visits of the US Secretary of State and National Security Adviser.

There are fears in India that a closer cooperation with the US on a common strategy vis-a-vis Pakistan may lead to pressure on resuming the composite dialogue process or the US nudging India to reduce its forces on the western border. In all engagements, publicly declared policies need not necessarily be the real policies actually implemented. India maintaining its forces on the border and making credible action against terrorists and terrorist infrastructure by Pakistan a conditionality for the composite peace process are the necessary components of the common containment strategy. Short of that, India should engage Pakistan in a dialogue as part of the international effort to apply pressure on Pakistan to change its ways. This appears to be the strategy Dr Manmohan Singh initiated at Sharm el-Sheikh.

India is not the only state against which the ISI-supported jihadi organisations are waging covert hostilities. These include the US, other Western countries, Austalia, Indonesia and even countries like Somalia. The most appropriate strategy to deal with Pakistan is to join the other powers in their efforts to contain Pakistan and apply combined pressure on it to compel it to change into a moderate Islamic state.

MIDDLE

A prisoner and a liberator
by P.C. Sharma

A review meeting by the National Human Rights Commission on the mental health care in the western region took me to Pune. This great city has been host to many historical events. Yerwada jail where Gandhiji was lodged to undergo sentence for sedition stands as a monument to some of them.

A visit to Gandhiji's cell in this jail evoked a powerful question: how can you keep human spirit alive in a prison cell and fight for a cause. Rigours of jail life can break the resolve of lesser mortals to fight for a cause, especially if it happens to be delivering your people from bondage. Life in this jail did not dim Gandhiji's resolve nor did it diminish his courage to fight.

His magic transcended the prison walls and cast a spell on millions outside. Nicely spruced now, the cell bears no resemblance to what it was when Gandhiji occupied it.

Bapu's time in the prison elapsed with the gentle din of charkha, and reading books six hours a day. Books were his companion during day and his pillow for sleep at night.

Daily frisked for weapons this prisoner, frail in body but indomitable in spirit could not be deprived of his most powerful armoury: his Ahimsa, his Charkha, his fasts and his prayers which he used most effectively to topple the Raj and achieve Swaraj - a goal set by another inmate of Yerwada, Lokmanya Tilak.

After visiting Gandhiji in Yerwada Rajgopalachari, wrote, "India's rulers were unaware of their privilege of being custodians of a man greater than Kaiser, greater than Napoleon, ....greater than the biggest prisoner of war".

The visit would have remained incomplete without visiting Sassoon Hospital where he was operated for appendicitis following terrible abdominal pain in jail. This heritage building was built by David Sassoon — a Jew from Baghdad who traded in opium in China. Now this edifice is his legacy of charity.

The operation room, not significantly bigger than his prison cell, is now thoughtfully embellished by the bed he lied down on for operation and the archival documents relating to his admission in the hospital and his discharge slip.

At the time of his discharge his "very efficient English nurse with smile curling around her lips" (Gandhiji's words), told Gandhiji that he being a boycotter of foreign goods was operated by Dr Muddik, a British doctor, ministered British medicines, and given post-operation care by a British nurse and "the umbrella shading him on his way out of the hospital British too". Bapu informed her that his boycott was for the sake of cloth made by men and women in India's villages by spinning charkha. She then remarked that she might wear khadi herself !

Overcome with emotions and tears welling up in my eyes I paid my homage thus: "Wherever Gandhiji lived — whether in jail or in an ashram — it became his karmabhoomi.”

While remaining in the confines of jail personally he fought for the liberation of others i.e. India. Is there any example of a prisoner being a liberator? It is only that of Bapu. Yarwada was one of his several karmaboomis wherefrom he waged a war for the freedom of India.

OPED

The Gorshkov deal
CAG objections not tenable
by Premvir Das

ADMIRAL Sergei Gorshkov became chief of the erstwhile Soviet Navy at the age of 45; he then remained in that chair for nearly 18 years. During his period in this high office, that Navy grew into a powerful sea-going force and it was during his tenure that the Soviets, until then derisively opposed to aircraft carriers considering them vulnerable to shore-based air and missile attacks, did a turnround and began to build these ships.

One of them, commissioned after his death, was to bear his name. This is the story of the Russian aircraft carrier, Gorshkov, currently in the news because it is being acquired by India.

In his recent report the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has made scathing remarks about its cost and condition.

The vessel, sold free but contracted at a cost of Rs 974 crore for its refit and modernisation (it had been lying unused for several years after the collapse of the Soviet economy), has suffered time and cost overruns, both due to underestimation of work and modifications needed by the Indian side.

The revised demand for $2.9 billion may finally be settled for around $2 billion but the CAG finds this a gross overspend for a platform which, in his view, would last only 20 years when a new one could be built at the same cost to last 40 years. In short, the country has been taken for a ride is the conclusion.

All those who have served in the Navy in earlier years know that no one has been more supportive of the growth of the Indian Navy as a premier maritime force in this part of the world than Admiral Gorshkov.

The Indians never asked for missile boats but were persuaded by him to buy them in 1968 with results that were seen worldwide in the spectacular attacks on Karachi in December 1971.

Later, in 1975, he pressed his own bureaucracy to clear the sale of the larger and more potent missile corvettes of the Vijaydurg class and the versatile missile destroyers of the Rajput class which made the Indian Navy comparable with any other naval force, leave aside that of the USA.

In 1988, a nuclear submarine was leased to us for three years, an act unimaginable from any of the other countries which operated such craft. The interface set in place by him has, happily, continued resulting in design collaboration for the Delhi class destroyers built in India and the sale of Tabar class frigates, all of technology relevant to modern warfare at sea.

The latest manifestation of this close relationship has seen the launch of our indigenous nuclear submarine INS Arihant in Visakhapatnam. This is the background in which we need to look at the acquisition of Gorshkov.

Let us look at the comments in perspective, first exploitability. In 1987, we acquired a much older aircraft carrier, HMS Hermes, from the British and renamed it INS Viraat. It has already been in service for 22 years and will last another 7 or 8 years, a life span of 30 years.

The first aircraft carrier, INS Vikrant, also purchased second hand in 1961, saw service until 1997, a good 36 years.

So this rather pessimistic assessment of a two decade life span for Gorshkov, much newer than the other two, by the CAG is clearly unjustified. There is no reason why this ship should not be operational for at least 30 years, possibly more.

Aircraft carriers are versatile hulls; in both the US and UK navies, which have great experience of operating such platforms, these vessels have routinely served for five decades. So the life time of Gorshkov is not an issue.

Then, there is the question of cost of repairs, which is said to have escalated to $ 2 billion. When the contract was concluded, repair work was just an estimate. It is only when the plates are ripped open and assemblies and sub-assemblies dismantled that a more accurate assessment of work can be made.

The state of cables, a very important constituent of equipment functionality, is not known until the innards are revealed. Then, there is the question of additional work required by the buyer to install new equipment and facilities.

In the case of Gorshkov, a huge ski jump of 400 tonnes of steel, 200 feet long and stretched 120 feet across the deck is being constructed for launch of aircraft.

In all such repairs carried out in Indian dockyards, work of much less scope and in smaller ships has taken far longer than earlier estimated but because the expenses are part of the dockyards' operating budget, no precise estimate of such refit costs has ever been made.

Accurate cost accounting would reveal they have been much higher than originally thought. So, we have to look at the increased refit costs now being projected with a little more pragmatism.

Finally, the contention that this ship is going to cost as much as a new one is not founded on facts. The indigenous aircraft carrier now being built at Kochi was ordered in 1997 but will not be launched until 2011 at the earliest. It will be at least 2016 before it enters operational service. Its cost, on delivery, will be nearly double that being paid for the Russian ship.

When the Navy Chief said recently that for $ 2 billion he would sign a cheque for the Gorshkov any day, he was not being flippant but clear sighted. The Indian Navy is not in the business of buying or negotiating for junk; its professional competence deserves greater credit than has been given. It is true that the delivery of the ship has been delayed a few years till 2012 due to extra work and price finalisation but this is not unusual in such complex projects.

Aircraft carriers are no ordinary warships, nor are they available off the shelf from wherever one chooses. They represent strategic sea power and provide to India a capability that no other regional nation has. We should not treat them as ordinary ammunition or ordnance.

Further, such acquisitions are to be seen in a larger context of inter-nation relationship and not as 'one off' purchases. There is a cost to everything, on either side, and there are benefits, quantifiable and non-quantifiable.

It is important to place such major weapon platform acquisitions in a larger politico-military context and not just as simple procurement issues. The proposed acquisition of 126 multi-role fighter aircraft falls in the same category. These purchases must have a political dimension and to treat them for mere financial audit is simplistic.

The writer is a former Commander-in-Chief of the Eastern Naval Command

Iran’s revolution has a vacancy at the top
by Azadeh Moaveni

ON June 15, five of my relatives — the oldest 65, the youngest 22 — spent four hours traveling across Tehran's sprawling metropolis to reach a demonstration against the country's election result. They first crammed into a creaky car, rode partway in a dilapidated bus and walked the final three miles. They strode quietly north along with an estimated 2 million others, hopeful that their show of peaceful force would convince the government to annul the election.

The next day, authorities began viciously attacking demonstrators, dispatching plainclothes henchmen to shoot randomly at civilians. Dissent, Iranians learned, could cost them their lives.

Immediately after the election, such protests evoked the grand marches of the 1979 Islamic revolution. But the scale of the dissent soon diminished. Clearly, the state's vicious tactics were partly to blame, but Iranians were not simply terrorized into staying at home. Rather, there was no leader inspiring them to take to the streets — and risk their lives. The friends and relatives I've spoken to remain outraged over the fraudulent election. But they also remain perplexed by the opposition leaders.

No one had an answer to this central question: For whom, exactly, would ordinary Iranians be willing to put themselves in danger? What sort of leadership is required to make violence worth it?

In the weeks after the initial protests, restless Tehranis recognized that they were outmaneuvered on the streets and sought to redirect their anger through civil disobedience. Mir Hossein Mousavi, who claimed to be the election's rightful winner, emerged as an accidental opposition leader. Nearly everyone I knew in Iran voted; they believed that Mousavi stood every chance to win, and had seen how Ahmadinejad's tenure gutted quality of life for Iranians, young and old, poor and middle class alike.

But Mousavi did not win. And although many people I spoke with admired his defiance in the election's immediate aftermath, some faulted him as the government crackdown intensified, with militiamen chasing people into their homes and ordinary citizens being detained.

Mousavi's admirers admire his refusal to back down as the hard-line leadership closed ranks against him. "He's done nothing to cool my regard," a cousin told me. "He has stuck to his word throughout and very courageously declared that he's not willing to give up the fight."

But they are also wary of his strategy. He was challenging the Islamic system within its very confines. For all his talk about how the people's will must be respected, Mousavi offered no formula for how this might be achieved. His ambiguous vision made some Iranians reluctant to stay in the fray.

"I was ready to protest peacefully for Iran improving a little bit," said one relative who attended only the first large protest. "But for the sake of Mousavi or Ahmadinejad? To me it's not worth it."

Iranians' ambivalence about Mousavi's leadership is reflected on their Facebook pages. Personal sites that bore the green logo "What Happened to My Vote?" began to change tone in early July. Many posted a picture of Mohammed Mossadegh, the democratically elected prime minister and national hero who was ousted in a CIA-backed coup in 1953. Underneath, his famous statement of anxiety about Islamist politics is quoted in bold: "I hope that Shiite leaders don't have any serious intention of entering the political arena. If this were to happen, Iran will be at the brink of catastrophe."

Mossadegh, a secular nationalist, was fiercely protective of Iran's sovereignty. Invoking him as a symbol of the leader Iranians aspire to have reminds me of the 1997-2005 era of the reformist President Mohammad Khatami. I lived in Iran during a long stretch of that time and find the wistful references to Mossadegh eerily familiar. He reappears cyclically, at moments when Iranians despair of their leaders and of any chance to shed the Islamic theocracy that many consider corrupt and unaccountable.

But there is no real leadership; the intellectuals and former officials who form the opposition's brain trust languish in Evin prison. So many Iranians have stepped in, planning labor and transportation strikes and the flooding of the streets of Tehran with green paint. The more ambitious plans have yet to materialize, but smaller efforts are attracting support.

The latest scheme involves stamping paper currency with images of Neda Agha Soltan, the young woman who was shot and killed during the protests, in hopes that eventually Iranians will be reminded, while buying a watermelon or cigarettes, of the state's free-falling legitimacy. A friend who has attended many of the protests said that people are mobilizing around these nascent plans, but that the kind of leadership that will channel their outrage into a long-term, coherent movement has yet to emerge.

The unwavering anger, however, is nudging Mousavi and his allies forward.

— By arrangement with LA Times-Washington Post

Chatterati
Celebs becoming fitness freaks
by Devi Cherian

YOU don't need to look abroad for celebrities with perfect bodies. So what if Nicolas Sarkozy jogged to hospital and we wondered why Indian celebrities are not in equally good shape, there may be inspiration lurking around the corner.

For businessman Robert Vadra, husband of Priyanka Gandh, works out religiously at a gym. He has bared his six-pack abs for a men's health magazine.

He has reduced his waist from 36 inches to 29 inches in two years. For him fitness is a priority and he devotes time to it everyday. Vadra went from 84 kg to 66 kg, but then he felt that was a bit too lean for him. So he regained weight and is now 69 kg.

The Gandhis too are absolutely fit and active. From Sonia Gandhi to Rahul and Priyanka, all look lean, strong and in good health.

Senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley goes for a walk in Lodhi Garden. Rajiv Pratap Rudy of the BJP is a regular at the new gym in Parliament. Most of the young MPs like Sachin Pilot, Navin Jindal and Deepinder Hooda are also fitness freaks, careful about their diet, which invariably is low-fat and protein-rich. Hema Malini is particular about her diet and dance, while Sandeep Dikshit runs 6-7 km everyday.

Rahul’s trip to Leh

Rahul Gandhi, the Congress general secretary, travelled to Leh last weekend along with a friend. They landed at Bhuntar on Saturday. To feel the real adventure on the scenic Manali-Leh route, Rahul drove in a Toyota Qualis taxi instead of the BMWs parked there.

This trip was kept a top secret and a private affair. Only two or three government officials were informed about the visit. Even the Congressmen had no information. To evade the media glare, the duo left for Kulu quietly. Rahul was not carrying a mobile phone and was staying in regular guest houses, eating the common man's food.

The Gandhi scion and his friend had butter toast and omelette for breakfast in Kulu. Lunch was at Koksar and they had kadi chawal and daal at a roadside dhaba. When the news of his visit spread, locals rushed to catch a glimpse of him. The villagers and the dhaba workers happily clicked Rahul's pictures as he cheerfully posed for them.

Rahul's next stop was Tanbi filling station. The entourage then proceeded to Jipsa, which is 10,890 feet above the sea level. They checked in Padma Guest House.

Here, too, Rahul was requested for a photo-op with locals and the hotel staff and he smiled for them. The next day they left for Leh. For the 12-hour journey to Leh, they packed pasta, chilli chicken, tandoori chicken, rice and chapattis.

Rahul, according to sources also concealed his identity in Jipsa and met locals as a common man. Among other things, he discussed the Rohtang tunnel project with them. The 9-km tunnel, once completed, will serve as a round-the-year link between Lahaul and Spiti and the rest of the country during winters when the region becomes inaccessible.

Rahul reached Leh in the evening and checked in The Grand Dragon Ladakh Hotel. He visited some Buddhist monasteries there. Preferring a small bedroom to a suite, he made it clear he had to pay for everything. He said “as an M.P it is illegal for me to accept anything for free". So they gave him a 10 percent discount.

Warding off evil spirits

Superstitions and politicians have always been together. In a state as tricky as J&K, omens are taken seriously. This time it's the new assembly complex that's spooking people. On the first day of the session in 2008, it led to the resignation of Ghulam Nabi Azad.

A year later, the second day of the session saw the Omar Abdullah resignation drama. Omar's well-wishers have roped in a holy man to recite holy verses to deter the evil spirits. The prayers were held on a closed day with only the inner circle of the party present.