Mittal dances to a new tune

Sunil Mittal, group chairman and CEO of Bharti Airtel, India’s largest mobile service provider, seems to be tired of answering questions on the telecom spectrum controversy and tactfully avoided any mention of it at the press conference unveiling the new corporate logo. Asked what was next on his agenda he said it was dancing to the new Airtel signature tune composed by A R Rahman.

Trickle-down effect

Managers of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Chhattisgarh are discovering that its leaders and activists no longer believe in maintaining discipline — once the party’s punch-line. The biggest problem is for Chief Minister Raman Singh. His ministers are leaking all manner of information about crucial Cabinet meetings to the media. Two days ago, in one such meeting, two ministers clashed with a junior minister over a housing project. Another minister then lashed out at a senior bureaucrat. The next day, both incidents hogged the headlines in local dailies. Singh is not surprised about the media sources, but he is stunned that internal rivalries among the ministers are the cause of such leaks.