Rajiv Gandhi

THE LATEST version of the greatest show of electoral democracy on Earth - India's national parliamentary elections - led this week to a shocking upset for the Hindu nationalist party that has held sway in New Delhi for the last six years and that called the early vote in firm anticipation that it would win. Now expected are political deals that would return to power the Congress Party - with Italian-born Sonia Gandhi, somewhat incredibly, as the most...

CHIJARASI, India -- A new government-financed study, based on fieldwork in 180 villages in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, has found that while a third of the women who are heading their village council, or panchayat, are just rubber stamps for their husbands, two-thirds are engaged in learning the ropes and exercising power.Like men, women panchayat leaders are now involved in obtaining village land for schools, selecting families who will qualify for government housing, and deciding how to distribute brick lanes, latrines and electricity.

Ram and Veena Rao wanted their 2-year-old son, Sunny, to experience a little of India, so they traveled yesterday to (P downtown Baltimore.The Carroll County couple brought their boy to sample the foods and meet fellow Indians at the India Day festival in Hopkins Plaza."

SRIPERUMBUDUR, India -- In a move that her supporters hope will shape Indian politics for years to come, Sonia Gandhi, widow of one assassinated prime minister and daughter-in-law of another, made an emotional entry into public life yesterday."

NEW DELHI, India -- Rajiv Gandhi's assassin dressed for her suicide mission in the party colors of her famous target, an orange shirt and green pants. And she carried a floral bouquet as an added prop, insurance that she would get close enough to the target to blow him to bits.Three sticks of high-powered, nitro-based explosives were strapped to her back, tucked into pockets in a homemade denim belt fastened around her waist, under her loose-fitting clothing, with hook and loop fasteners.

India is on hold. The refusal of the widow Sonia Gandhi to accept titular leadership of the Congress Party forces it to choose new leadership. Postponement of the rest of the election until mid-June gives the party time. But that creaky political machine may not be up to the job.The Congress Party is a century old and founded the modern Indian state, now 844 million diverse people, as a tolerant and pluralist democracy. And yet the party has been at the top little more than a Nehru-Gandhi family dynasty.

IN THE course of one lunar month, three widows have been elected to positions once held by their late husbands. In California, Lois Capps won a special vote to serve out the remaining term of Democratic representative Walter Capps. Mary Bono was similarly elected to replace Republican Sonny Bono. On the other side of the planet, Sonia Gandhi was voted president of the political party led by her late husband, Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.This is an age in which all sorts of social stereotypes -- the good scout, the passive grandmother, the uninvolved father -- have undergone a solid debunking.

Boston HOW COULD he get away with it for so long? That is the question posed by the collapse of Robert Maxwell's empire so quickly after his death.For years he ran what amounted to an international confidence ** game, borrowing to cover up his accounts. An official British inquiry in 1971 found him unfit to be in charge of a public company. Yet politicians honored him; and newspapers printed his boasts, hollow though most of them turned out to be.London's Financial Times said last week Maxwell was not some unimportant figure; his operations affected large interests and many people.

NEW DELHI, India - Hounded by Hindu nationalists and apparently fearing for her safety, Italian-born Sonia Gandhi shocked her adopted nation yesterday by announcing she would not become India's next prime minister. Former Finance Minister Manmohan Singh, a key member of Gandhi's transition team, will be the Congress party's new candidate, Jairam Ramesh, a senior Congress official, told The Associated Press today. Once the allies have expressed their support for Singh - who would be the country's first Sikh prime minister - Singh must meet the president to stake his claim to form the next government.

New Delhi -- One could be forgiven for thinking Sri Lanka is at war. Yesterday, a landmine attack killed 11 soldiers on the northern Jaffna peninsula, while a policeman was killed patrolling the eastern town of Kalmunai; both attacks were blamed on the ethnic separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Early on Sunday, a pro-rebel parliamentarian was assassinated during Christmas Mass at a Roman Catholic service in Batticaloa, on the east coast; Tamil Tigers blamed it on pro-government militias.