Drawing the line

Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, who recently emerged out of the controversy over the affidavit on poverty line, hoped to draw a lot of support from good friend and Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh. So much so that he went to the extent of requesting Ramesh to get his ministry to implead itself in the poverty-line case in the Supreme Court. Ahluwalia may have gone wrong in drawing the line in the case of poverty, but Ramesh sure knew where to draw the line when it came to friendship. He refused to have his ministry dragged into the case, even for friendship’s sake.