If you've missed the Tehelka story that got former telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran into trouble, here it is.

What it says, in brief: As minister, he stalled Aircel's efforts to get telecom licences for years. And then after arm-twisting the owners to sell the company to the Malaysian firm Maxis, which his friend owns, he fast-tracked the spectrum approvals. As kickbacks, he got Maxis to invest in two companies run by his family. He benefited to the tune of Rs 700 crore, the magazine alleges. That's a lot, and he must be punished, especially when Kanimozhi, his parliamentarian-cousin accused of pocketing about Rs 200 crore, is already in jail. Dayanidhi is the next on CBI's calling list, Tehelka predicts.

Soon after news broke that Maran, now textiles minister in the Manmohan Singh cabinet, was going to get into a legal battle with Tehelka, stocks of Sun TV Networks fell by 30 per cent and low-cost air carrier SpiceJet by 12 per cent. They recovered a little later in the day. The

'Headley wanted assignment in Kashmir', screams one terrifying headline. As the world listens in rapt attention to David Coleman Headley, self-confessed terrorist and co-accused in the 26/11 attacks on Mumbai, one thing is ringing loud and clear - the ISI is not the innocent, not-in-the-know organisation it loudly claims to be.

Tahawwur Rana, a Canadian businessman of Pakistani origin, is being tried in the US courts for offering support to LeT, the terrorist outfit behind the 26/11 attacks. Rana has maintained he's innocent till now, but Headley's singing like the proverbial canary, bringing Rana's plea of not guilty to dust. The Headley hearing is something that's been long anticipated to bring some amount of closure to the still-open wounds of the 26/11 attacks that India continues to battle with. But his damning disclosures about the ISI's involvement and the powers-that-be that control terrorist factions in Pakistan and their anti-Indian stance are no less chilling almost three

Niira Radia, the glamorous lobbyist whose taped conversations revealed to a gaping nation how billion-dollar deals are struck and ministers appointed in Delhi, on Wednesday scored a victory over R K Anand, the lawyer who has written what she calls a defamatory book on her.

Niira had approached the Delhi High Court seeking a stay on its release, and the court has granted her request.  The book won't hit the stands as scheduled, but excerpts from it have already been published on sites such as Firstpost and Churumuri.

Titled Close Encounters with Niira Radia, the book details how the Kenyan-born, London-educated lobbyist got close to the then aviation minister Ananth Kumar and began swinging mega deals. She allegedly helped sell aircraft to central and state governments as she got more and more intimate with the BJP leader.

Anand writes in a prose that can only be described as besotted: "Early during the summer of 1996, an impeccably attired young woman with large, smiling yet deep-set

A woman is her own worst enemy (and its suitable variants thereof).

Poor Kanimozhi. Not only did she dig her own grave by accepting cheques that proved to be her undoing in the 2G scam and sent her to jail, she also has incurred the wrath of staunch political opponent Amma for being wimpish enough to ask for mercy for "being a woman". Well-spoken Kani has been for years seen as a patron of the arts and somewhat of a cultural ambassador by the country's youth, but her playing the gender card has not gone down well with puratchi thalaivi (revolutionary leader) Jayalalithaa, would-be harbinger of bottled water for those below the poverty line in Tamil Nadu.

Jayalalithaa's shrewdness is legendary, but those who see her unlined face with jowls of baby fat, creamy, pampered skin and the doe eyes that show why she was a much sought-after heroine in yesteryear Tamil cinema, can easily be misled into thinking she's capable of compassion for a fellow woman. Now if women themselves don't espouse