NEWS
Cabinet decides to get rid of TRAI
Information and Technology Minister Pramod Mahajan said the regulator would be replaced with a dispute settlement body and an appellate tribunal.

NEWS
Viraat to be armed with Israeli anti-missile system
The aircraft carrier is undergoing a major refit at Cochin Shipyard Limited to extend its life to at least 2010.

THE GREAT DIVESTMENT DEBATE
'There is a good case to delink divestment from the Budget'
'Writing an article is the easiest thing in the world to do; divestment, comparatively, is far more difficult,' Minister for I&B and Divestment Arun Jaitley tells rediff.com

'Government is selling the jewellery to pay the grocer'
'Whatever assets our predecessors have built up are being put on sale, but no new assets are being created. The economic fundamentals have not improved,' says Gurudas Das Gupta, leader of the CPI in the Rajya Sabha.

NEWS
Blasts cripple power supply, J&K faces worst winter
Fear-stricken residents in Srinagar return home before darkness envelops the valley. 'My children refuse to sleep as troops patrol our area in darkness. Soon I may have to take them to a psychiatrist,' said a lady teacher.

SPECIAL
Working on the Gurkhas
Once it had consolidated its position in Kathmandu, the ISI began expanding operations, going into the hinterland, particularly the region bordering India that is home to arguably the Indian Army's doughtiest fighters -- the Gurkhas.

SPECIAL
Is some rethinking of policy towards Afghanistan now needed?
'Can the Taleban continue to be ignored and denounced as a malign, fundamentalist State bent on doing damage to India, or do the country's interests demand a move, however cautious, to open links with Kabul? asks former foreign secretary Salman Haider.

MONEY
'How can my sister in the US repatriate her family pension from India?'
Kannan Ranganathan answers this and many other personal banking queries.

SPORTS
Oz weather Pak blast, win again
A spectacular opening salvo by Ijaz Ahmed and Abdur Razzaq was marred by rank bad batting by the rest. Australia stuck to its basic virtues of disciplined cricket, to pull off yet another win at the SCG. Prem Panicker reports.

MUSIC
Yesudas, 60
Exclusive! A walk down memory lane with the singer. Plus, tributes by well-known musicians and songs on Real Audio.

BOOKS
'As a tribute, this is rather tasteless'
'The publisher, faced with a Hobson's choice, has succumbed to presenting us with the salacious, not the sagacious bits, out of her life,' says Jahnavi Sheriff of Protima Bedi's memoirs, Timepass.

MOVIES
'There have been many ups and downs'
Juhi Chawla, as charming as ever.

MOVIES
A film worth seeing!
Fazil has another hit on his hands with Kannukkul Nilavu.

MILLENNIUM SPECIAL
'Hema Malini's reign at the top was unrivalled'
Rauf Ahmed on the biggest stars in Bollywood.

COLUMNS
Fifty years of solitude
'The parroting of statements by this government, about reviewing the Constitution, should stop forthwith, if the intention is not to go beyond them. What the nation needs is firm assurance of action, and a firmer assurance that whatever action is contemplated will not be a partisan exercise,' says Saisuresh Sivaswamy.

Our governments have a tendency to keep things under wraps
'I asked in the Rajya Sabha why the Henderson-Brooks report on the India-China war had not been made public even after 38 years. The reply was that it could not be done in the public interest. The Subrahmanyam Committee report on Kargil looks like going the same way,' says Kuldip Nayar.

Moral of the story
'The reduction in the interest rate of the Public Provident Fund will have a "moral influence" on the rest of the economy,' says Devangshu Datta.

Tendulkar must talk tough
Indian cricket needs orders, not encouragement. And, says Harsha Bhogle, only Sachin Tendulkar can give them without fear of an uprising.