Academic Grapevine

Sahara shiningPerhaps the most unkindest cut of all is that an emerging epicentre of the millennial boom in blatant conspicuous consumption is Lucknow, capital of Uttar Pradesh (UP), the largest and arguably poorest state of the Indian Union. Over the past decade or so UP and Lucknow in particular, has been transformed into Sahara country by virtue of its being the heaquarters of Sahara India Ltd, a multi-business group of mysterious origins and antecedents. Currently the Sahara Parivar (family) presided over by its ‚Ëœmanaging worker‚ Subrata Roy owns an airline, a television channel, sponsors the Indian cricket and hockey teams, and has built the first hill station in the history of post-independence India (Amby Valley). Nor is it surprising that the quintessentially moffusil ruling party in Uttar Pradesh ‚ the Samajwadi Party ‚ shares the same acronym as Sahara Parivar.Recently the Sahara Parivar celebrated the ‚ËœWeddings of the Century‚ of Roy‚s two sons in Lucknow with unprecedented pomp and ceremony. Among the 11,000 invitees were the prime minister, every page three personality you can recall and a huge army of foreign guests and entertainers. A passage from Xpressions ‚ Air Sahara‚s in-flight magazine ‚ describes the pomp, grandeur and scale of festivities at the wedding thus: “The majestic dinner that was laid out was a gourmet‚s delight with as many as 110 cuisines, comprising Indian, Mexican, Italian, Mongolian, Lebanese, Chinese and American dishes to suit a variety of choices and tastes. The entire fooding (sic) was arranged by the Chef, Shri Hemant Oberoi and his team from the Taj Group of Hotels and for the first time ever, in both the marriages, arrangements for a sitting dinner for over 5,000 guests were made, under strict hygienic conditions.” And while the privileged invitees who included “900 IAS/IPS officials from UP” dined in style, “a soul-stirring musical extravaganza” was provided by a 121-piece British Symphony Orchestra from Birmingham.India shining at its best!Don‚s graduate armyNotorious gangster Prakash Srivastava alias Babloo, former associate of transnational gangsters Dawood Ibrahim and Chota Rajan, who has 38 criminal cases filed against him and is contesting the Lok Sabha elections from Lucknow‚s neighbouring Sitapur district, has a uniquely qualified army of volunteers campaigning for him. Over 1,000 Lucknow University (LU) alumni see nothing wrong in campaigning for an alumnus who chose to walk the wild side while a student of the 83-year-old university. Right now even as Srivastava cools his heels in Rai Bareilley jail, his graduate army has fanned into the countryside armed with posters, banners and buntings extolling people to vote for Srivastava who has shown “true repentance”. Srivastava‚s election campaign calls upon the electorate to vote for Sitapur‚s “true son”, so he can prove his worth, and give a befitting reply to those who‚ve framed him for heinous crimes including the Mumbai bomb blasts of 1993. To the charge of criminalisation of politics, his graduate army‚s ingenuous retort is “What harm has he done to the people of Sitapur?” Srivastava‚s supporters claim that their campaign…