Lata Mangeshkar: The voice that haunted Indians for decades

The tea bonanza is over. Tea prices have been falling steadily for the last three years since 1977 when they touched a high of nearly 121 pence per pound (about Rs 48 a kg).

Cynicism corrupts; absolute cynicism corrupts absolutely. If a fraction of the energy that is spent in trying to unearth the supposedly vast hordes of currency notes gathering dust in lofts and sealed cupboards around the country were to be applied towards strengthening what is left of the white money, the Indian economy would not be in such dire straits today.

Oil is lighter than metals: that is probably one reason that while oil prices are going up, metal prices are coming down, and with a bang.

Both Brussels and New Delhi are keen to expand their joint activities particularly in industry and technology, with close interaction at several levels. The new agreement will go much beyond the earlier one and will enable India to ask for and receive more generous cooperation in fields other than just trade and commerce.

The European Community is as old as the Republic of India: both were born in 1950. But the Community acquired real teeth only a year later when six countries: Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg, signed the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) Treaty in Paris.

In 1973 when Britain, apparently the most 'difficult' of EEC members, was first admitted into the Community the 'yes' votes were only 37 per cent, while 30 per cent were against. After British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's brush with the EEC over the budget last year, the proportion of 'nos' may have, gone up but the average Britisher is now by and large reconciled to the situation, though he may still talk about having a holiday on the continent, without realising that their sceptred isle is very much a part of that continent.

Naarden is not known much outside Bombay and is possibly one of the smallest of multinationals operating in India. There are, according to the Company Law Department, 125 subsidiaries of multinationals in India, apart from maybe three times as many which have ceased to be subsidiaries because of Foreign Exchange Regulations Act (FERA) but have close links with their parent companies.

Next only to the United States, the European Community is the second most powerful industrial power in the world, and India, though by all conventional indicators a ''poor'' country, is among the top ten industrial nations.

Along with prices, other things are also looking up. There has been considerable improvement in infrastructure and there is no reason to believe that it will not continue. On economic grounds, the corporate sector should have a good year.

Inspector Ghote has had harder crimes to solve, and arduous locations to reach, but none so magical and close to his heart as this foray into the dreamworld of Bombay's filmi duniya.

In plenary session in New Delhi next week is the world's largest and most raucous club. The Non-aligned, with more than 100 foreign ministers attending. The club is weighted down by numbers it has 95 full members, 21 observers, three guests, spanning four continents and crippled by the lack of a sense of direction.

The sudden souring of relations between Malaysia and the Philippines seems to have reached breaking point and observers are predicting that the two sides might come to blows before the differences are resolved.

Besides, in India, the position of the widow has been one of such dependence, subservience, sexual exploitation and inauspicious second-class citizenship that to many death was preferable to such existence.

In Bombay on January 25, after three days of deliberations, the All-India Democratic Socialist Convention formally launched the Democratic Socialist Front with Bahuguna as chairman.

Three persons were killed when police opened lire to quell a riotous mob in the Bangalore bandh called by the striking employees of five giant public sector units.

Despite the massive arrangements made by the Punjab Government to prevent the demonstrators from reaching Chandigarh over 50,000 of them walked and cycled into the city.

Some of the victims were allegedly-beaten mercilessly with boots, rifle-butts and lathis. One of them who cried for water was asked to drink his own urine.

Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's 20-Point Programme, which was aimed at boosting the party's image during the Emergency, is doing just the opposite for her Congress(I) in Madhya Pradesh.

The fifth Indo-Soviet youth festival which was to begin in New Delhi from February 5 has been postponed indefinitely.

With the creation of Kargil district, the demand for a separate division for Ladakh, currently part of Kashmir division, is being strongly pressed.

Who has not chewed on a mouthful of dal and found to his chagrin that a stone was trying to blunt his teeth? Adulteration has become a frustrating part of life, with the inedible deceptions swelling the merchant's bank account all the time.

The seemingly innocuous block has proved a headache for the Uttar Pradesh Government, especially for state Health Minister Lokpati Tripathi.

The ungainly, disorganised township of Trippunithura hardly looks the sort of place which might once have sheltered royalty. In fact, very few of its citizens any longer remember the Maharajas and the Cochin royalty who once ruled from there.

A nondescript hamlet with 5,000-odd people, lost in the rural backwash of the paddy and coffee-rich district of Hassan in Karnataka, makes headlines once every 12 or 14 years. The occasion is the anointing of the 59-foot tall statue of Lord Gomateswara, also known as Lord Bhahubali, the most prominent and sacred deity of Jains, followers Of Lord Mahavira, a contemporary of Lord Buddha.

Will the building boom in Bangalore collapse like the proverbial house of cards? The answer depends on the outcome of a tug of war being waged between the city's inhabitants, its corporation and the Urban Arts Commission on the one hand, and on the other the hordes of real estate developers who have been drawn to the vast open spaces of the one-time army cantonment town.

Jails in Bihar are a world by themselves - a forgotten world of dank, depressing cells where brutality is the password and corruption a norm. Occasionally the public awakes to the distress of the prisoners - but only occasionally.

When former Pakistan president Zulfikar Ali Bhutto made his famous remark about producing a nuclear bomb even if the entire country was forced to eat grass, he had no idea exactly how prophetic his words were going to be.

Few stage directors in modern times have done more to spread the message of German playwright Bertolt Brecht than German-born, 56-year-old Fritz Bennewitz, the director of several award-winning plays on television and on stage, all over Europe.

The last thing it resembled was a place for medical treatment. Situated in the village of Kukma, 10 km, from the district headquarters of Bhuj in Gujarat, it looked more like a carnival put up by some itinerant gypsy group.

Justice Ismail's resignation and Justice Singh's reported annoyance have plunged the 380-odd High Court judges serving in the nation's 18 high courts into a pall of gloom. And, inevitably, it has also provided the Opposition with a stick to beat Mrs Gandhi's Government.

Manubhai Shah, 50, a small, wiry, bespectacled textile mill manager from Ahmedabad, could become the Ralph Nader of India. If his name isn't a household word yet, some of his activities at least have gained wide public notice. And if some of them have come to nothing, there are enough successes to show that causes can be fought and won.