Vinod Mehta's book Lucknow Boy, releasing on November 9, reveals interesting details not just about the celebrated editor but also about recent Indian history.

The Hindustan Times has published excerpts from the book, and one bit reveals that former prime minister A B Vajpayee lived it up, and was not shy about his friendships with women. Mehta writes of the BJP's top leader: "Vajpayee was no saint. He liked to drink moderately and eat non-vegetarian food less moderately. Being a bachelor and a political star (Henry Kissinger: power is the ultimate aphrodisiac), he was never short of female company. "

The editor of the Outlook group, who also worked with Debonair, Sunday Observer, and for a brief while with the Times of India, is outspoken about his colleagues Arun Shourie and Dileep Padgaonkar, and records why he can't respect them.

The book records how the Radia tapes scandal broke. Mehta writes: "The first thing that struck all of us was the crystal-clear quality of the

For all practical purposes, Mamata has lost this battle she sprang on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The government is not going to roll back the hike in fuel prices, as she had demanded.

When the government increased the price of petrol by Rs 1.82, the Bengal chief minister threatened to withdraw support for the UPA. She was the champion of the common citizen again, taking up a cause the other allies of the coalition had ignored. If there was one party that looked serious about bringing down fuel prices, it was the Trinamool Congress. The CPM, the long-entrenched party she defeated to come to power, was sceptical, but media observers were convinced she would wrangle at least a partial rollback of the petrol price hike.

In earlier instances, the centre has taken such threats seriously, since the Trinamool Congress, with 18 MPs, is a major partner of the central coalition. (The other major alliance partner, the DMK, is discredited and weak, with two of its top leaders lodged in Tihar

On Indira Gandhi's 27th death anniversary, government departments issued advertisements that must have cost them a fortune. No austerity was in evidence. After all, it was the tax-payers' money, and not any party's.

Congress supporters will argue: If the NDA government could splurge on its 'India Shining' campaign, why shouldn't the Congress sing the praises of one of the country's greatest leaders? That's a weak argument because it was the Congress that actually started the practice of taking out full-page ads on some pretext or the other, and the party is obsessed with the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, rather than with great leaders. How many ads have we seen honouring Lal Bahadur Shastri or Sardar Valabhbhai Patel, or any other Congress leader, for that matter?

As coincidences go, Patel's birth anniversary falls the same day Indira Gandhi was assassinated. This year, the BJP  noticed the indifference towards him, and asked why the government had issued just one ad in his honour, while

Just after midnight the stork flapped into the Philippines bearing Danica May Camacho, officially declared by the United Nations as the 7 billionth earthling. After the delirious jollity accompanying the newborn's arrival wore off, church bells that had started clanging to celebrate the announcement continued to peal. Could one detect a streak of despair in those strains?

Bluntly put, little Danica had set off the alarm.

On this overcrowded ark, that day-old Filipina is one more claimant to our meager resources. One more carbon footprint, albeit infant-sized, to hasten the juggernaut of climate change. One more mouth and belly to stake claim to precious — and increasingly scarce — stores of food and water. To chip away at diminishing fossil fuel reserves. To demand the denuding of another square kilometer of forest cover to sustain her burgeoning urban terrarium, the biodiversity of which is rapidly diminishing.

One more person to press home the alarming reality that one earth