RESEARCH

The report carrying her clarification on Rahul Gandhi's MPhil raises more questions than answers Dear Prof Alison Richard, I am a Delhi-based journalist investigating the academic credentials of Rahul Gandhi, the Indian National Congress candidate contesting from the constituency of Amethi, Uttar Pradesh, for the Lok Sabha elections 2009. I would like to get a detailed confirmation of your interview with Press Trust of India, the report of which was carried by The Times of India , IBN and Zee News . Recently, they (a newspaper and two television news channels respectively) carried an identical story (the web pages of IBN and Zee News do not give PTI the credit) in their respective websites, saying you, in the capacity of the Vice Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, have confirmed that Rahul Gandhi (son of former/late Prime Minister of India Rajiv Gandhi) received the postgraduate degree of MPhil on Development Studies from your esteemed university. The three web pages are

How would you react if this man were your colleague? _______________ Surajit Dasgupta _______________ I n 1994, this writer came across a young girl who was then serving a direct sales associate of a multinational bank as a telemarketing executive. She must not have met the right people at the right time till then. For, with a PGDBM from IMT-Ghaziabad and a degree in commerce from SRCC, she deserved better. Within six months of our first meeting, however, I was glad to know she had become the supervisor of the NBFC which was also the American bank's DSA. But her colleagues were not impressed. They said she was having an affair with the marketing manager of the company. A few months later during a chat with that manager, I noticed he was visibly crest-fallen. The reason turned out to be the break up of his relationship with the girl in question. I learnt she was then seeing the area sales manager of a competing bank. Mutual acquaintances said the two were about to get married