The Big Picture

It was a dramatic shooting in true filmi style. Former Bandit Queen and Samajwadi Party MP Phoolan Devi was shot dead, in broad daylight by three unknown masked gunmen outside her Ashoka Road residence, in the heart of New Delhi. She was returning home after attending the Lok Sabha.

Both the Houses of Parliament were adjourned for the day as a mark of respect for Phoolan who had been elected to the Lok Sabha from Mirzapur, in eastern Uttar Pradesh.

The Unit Trust of India (UTI) saga continued this week with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) raiding the residence of ex-UTI chairman P S Subramanyam, and other UTI executives.

On a more hopeful note, the new UTI chairman, M Damodaran mapped out a four-pronged strategy to re-invent the beleaguered mutual fund and restore investor confidence.

On the corporate front, Hindustan Lever Ltd posted a 21 per cent rise in profit after tax for the second quarter ended June 30, 2001, at Rs 346.73 crore. HLL reported a 1.8 per cent increase in net sales for the quarter at Rs 2,931.25 crore against Rs 2,879.72 crore in the corresponding period of last year.

On the other hand, Tata Engineering has announced a net loss of Rs 98.90 crore in the first quarter of 2001-02, against a loss of Rs 74.34 crore during the corresponding period of last year.

The stock market saw ICE stocks in a tailspin. Polaris Software lost as much as 37 per cent in the first three days of the week. Last Friday it closed at Rs 209.90. This fell to Rs 132.35 on Wednesday.

DSQ Software declined 36 per cent during this period. The Sterlite Optical counter lost 33.84 per cent and Global Tele-Systems declined by 29.47 per cent.

Meanwhile, prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on Tuesday rejected the Opposition demand for the resignation of finance minister Yashwant Sinha over the UTI fiasco. With the prime minister firmly behind him, Sinha immediately went on the offensive calling a meeting of party MPs to explain the finance ministry