Bonding with <i>Sholay</i>

Sholay may have been a mega-hit of the mid-seventies but its characters still influence people in public life, not least Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh. He recently advised District Collectors and Superintendents of Police (SPs) to behave like Jai-Veeru. Singh, of course, was referring to the strong bond between the two, not their background, as a metaphor for the kind of coordination he wanted between the administrative and police chiefs in the districts. But a ham-handed publicity department chose to highlight the point in a press release that, predictably, local media headlined the next day. That provided rich grist to the opposition mill and they duly weighed in with glee. "Does the chief minister want District Collectors and SPs to be notorious criminals escaping from jail and signing up to work for Thakur?" quipped local Congress President Nandkumar Patel.