Reconnect

A quick rewind of the events that made 2000 the year it was !

July-October: Veerappanorama

Y2GREED
Workers at Maruti go on strike despite earning Rs 22,000 a month, double what Hyundai, Ford and Telco pay.

Sumit Ganguly
When the chips are down, India caves in. For all its bluster even the BJP regime blinked and swerved in this game of chicken.

Only in Outlook

Sagarika Ghose on Naveen Patnaik: Pappus cool. But can he rule? Hes hung out with Nancy Reagan in Manhattan clubs. Some say he once did soft drugs, wore an earring and attended every hip party in Delhi. But thats not a big deal if youre CM of Indias second poorest state (revenue deficit: Rs 2,000 crore). Jackie Kennedy was his pal. Sos Gore Vidal and Mick Jagger. But thats an even smaller deal in a state where even pandas at the Lingaraj temple say theyre forced to serve the gods only because there isnt any industry...

2000 in 200 Words : The Soft State

Ladies Special

In the year 2000, the honour of being Indias billionth child was conferred on Aastha;

Ayesha Dharker caught George Lucas Kapoeye through Terrorist; Ekta or at 24 had 23 hit TV serials; Indra Nooyi took the escalator to the top ofPepsico; Bibi Jagir Kaur made news first for all the right reasons and then for all the wrong ones; Kamala Das became Soraiyya; Karnam Malleswari won India a bronze at the Sydney Olympics; Rachna Kandahar Katyal got anaudience with Bill Clinton; Manisha Koirala

got Rs 5 crore for hosting a game show no one saw; Padma Lakshmi set the tiles ablaze with Salman Rushdie; Boris Beckers latest squeeze was revealed to be India-born Sabrina Setlur; Sonia Gandhi

was refused entry into the Akal Takht; S.Vijayalakshmi became Indias first Grand Master in chess.

IT all started with Rajju Bhaiyya saying that the Kandahar hijacking highlighted the cowardice in Hindu society. From then on, all through the 108-day kidnap saga of Kannada filmstar Dr Rajkumar, it was a nonstop gabfest on the soft state. Eight or 10 young men could have stood up and tried to capture the hijackers by creating a frenzy.But they failed to rise in spite of the murder of a co-passenger due to the fear of death, the ex-rss chief continued.The vhps Ashok Singhal piped in: If the pilot had courage, he would have refused to fly the hijacked plane. Captain D. Sharan, who commanded IC 814, retorted: I dont know who this gentleman is but he knows nothing of aviation or the value of innocent lives. Undeterred, civil aviation minister Sharad Yadav put in his two bits: If you see a hijacker on board, nab him and bag a prize for bravery. As a whole country called for military action against Veerappan to free Rajkumar, supercop K.P.S. Gills stand that all talk of a soft state was just a pathetic bid to absolve leaders and transfer the guilt to the nation at large rang true.

Respondents who felt Kandahar had exposed India as a soft state

53%

But Actually

THE arrival of the Karmapa in January sparked a furious row. India is renowned for its tolerance and hospitality. Should India turn the boy away, it would contradict its traditions of acceptance and regard for humanitarian and spiritual values, wrote Lea Terhune... Granting asylum will serve no purpose other than making Beijing more suspicious of Indias intentions, felt Swaran Singh.

Lingua Franca AD 2000 saw a fair few words enter our lexicon.

Sure, confident and lock entered folklore because of kbc.

Maine match banaya is now on par with Mian, captain banoge.

Kandahar and then Veerappan immortalised soft state...

The American polls gave us chad, swinging chad, dimpled chad and hanging chad.

This was the year direct-to-home (DTH) services were allowed... But the door was once again slammed shut on the entry of foreign print media

What can we say when the cvc puts up the names of 108 corrupt officers (86 ias, 22 ips) but the finance minister refuses to publish the names of bank loan defaulters?