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Politics Business Expressions General Sports Leisure States 06 February 1998   Bizarre but proper As bizarre as the situation in Nagaland appears to be, that is no reason to treat the outcome of the Assembly elections there as anything other than proper and correct as long as the rest of the process is conducted in a peaceful atmosphere.   Faith finds a way It was the Africa of the early decades of this century. God had never had it so good. Evangelism was a driving force and had attracted some spirited men and women to venture into the wilderness and save the natives for Christ. Gandhari's curse lives on The Mahabharat war was over. Bodies of dead warriors were scattered all over the battlefields of Kurukshetra. The futility of the fight was apparent to all: the Kauravas and Pandavas had both lost. Gandhari, the ever-faithful consort of the blind king Dhritrashtra, had finally taken off the bandage behind which she had hidden her eyes in sympathy with her sightless husband. In Kashmir, it's Farooq vs Abdullah Kashmir, it would seem, is not your cup of tea, Farooq. You have miserably failed to carry on the Abdullah legacy. You were doing well as a physician-cum-philanderer in London until your father, Sheikh Abdullah, decided to set up a dynasty, no doubt inspired by the premier political dynasty of the country.   Jyoti Basu has a dream Jyoti Basu was never the one to give up easily. Look at the octogenarian leader's political longevity, his record as Chief Minister beyond challenge through decades of destabilised regimes. He has now given fresh proof of his tenacity by reviving his bid for the country's top post, quite a while after the claim was presumed to have been rejected by his own party. Confessions of an accomplice In the concluding part of the Rajiv trial series, Ritu Sarin, examines the crucial evidence of Nalini, who played a cover for Rajiv's killer, Dhanu. Nalini, one of the principal accused and the only survivor of the five-member "assault" team in the Rajiv Gandhi assaination case has been sentenced to death. Her confessional statement proved to be the clincher for the investigators.