Newsreel 11.01.04

• Curtains are down on Sop Opera 2004 with Finance Minister Jaswant Singh announcing the latest tranche of feel-good fruits. The latest...

• Curtains are down on Sop Opera 2004 with Finance Minister Jaswant Singh announcing the latest tranche of feel-good fruits. The latest beneficiaries: government staff who will have 50 per cent of their DA merged with basic pay to give higher allowances like house rent, costing the exchequer Rs 4,000 crore. Farmers stand to get cheaper loans from banks with lesser security. But what if it were the banking sector that cemented the feel-good wave by lifting the stock markets from a four-year stupor. The Government decides to continue telling banks what interest rates to charge different sections of the society.

• The NHAI, PMO and now the CBI. A solitary whistle-blower’s tragedy takes down with it the premier probe agency too as two suspects kill themselves a day after interrogation. Sheonath Kumar Saha and Mukendra Paswan, released by the CBI after several hours of questioning in Gaya in the Satyendra Dubey murder case, allegedly committed suicide by consuming pesticide.

• The festival of sacrifice bestows a gift to the trouble-torn Valley. As the first effective follow-up of the talks between the Centre and Hurriyat Conference, the Jammu and Kashmir government revokes the detention orders of 34 detainees on the eve of Id-ul-Zuha.

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• Call it the Mumbai Police farce. Seventy-seven days after putting Parvinder Singh Pasricha in the Commissioner’s chair with a mandate to clean up the post-Telgi mess, Maharashtra government ‘‘promotes’’ him as DGP (Housing).

• Death came cheap this week as a tragedy and two terror acts kill scores. Over 250, including 13 Indians, die in a Mecca stampede while two suicide bombers kill 56 people and wound up to 200 in simultaneous attacks against two Kurdish parties in northern Iraq. Days later a suspected suicide blast in a Moscow metro train kill another 39.

• After a humiliating defeat in the first tri-series final, Indian cricketers spend the final few days in Australia in search of the icing on the cake. Hockey fans had a hectic week. Both the men’s and the women’s team match their wits against the best in the world. Asia Cup for women’s at Delhi sees the home team upset defending champs South Korea.