Muqimuddin Farooqi, party activist: born Ambetha, Uttar Pradesh, India 1920; joined Communist Party of India (CPI) 1940, member, national council 1958, central executive 1972, central secretariat 1981; married Vimla Kapoor (one son); died New Delhi 3 September 1997.

You've got to admit that cosmologist Stephen Hawking is a pretty extraordinary man. I don't mean in the accepted sense of genius - I have no idea whether or not the author of A Brief History of Time should be taken at his own estimation as the spiritual heir to Galileo and Isaac Newton. I mean in the shallower sense that he has got to be by far the most disabled man to have fronted a major TV series.

Best Discovery

Phoolan Devi, India's 'Bandit Queen', is in trouble again. But this time, as she hears herself accused of murder, she is sitting in a seat in parliament.

India's notorious Bandit Queen, Phoolan Devi, is on the run again. The former outlaw, elected as a member of parliament from Mirzapur last year, went missing last week after mass murder, kidnapping and robbery charges against her were revived and her petition for advance bail was turned down.

India's Supreme Court, cracking down on chemical and carbon fumes threatening the Taj Mahal, ordered almost 300 coal-based industries in its vicinity to close by the end of 1997.

The Isherwood family were on their first foreign holiday. On the grassy verge beside a quiet road on the Greek island of Crete, Howard Isherwood pushed his four-year-old son, David, in a buggy, as his wife, Joan, walked beside them with their other son, Andrew, nine.

Frank McLynn reviews a sober account of the bloodlust that characterise d the Indian Mutiny; Our Bones are Scattered: The Cawnpore Massacres and the Indian Mutiny of 1857 by Andrew Ward John Murray, pounds 25

I, Phoolan Devi by Phoolan Devi, Little, Brown, pounds 18.99

This week's poll result leaves the world's largest democracy politicall y unstable, says James Chiriyankandath

India's premier is somehow hopeful of keeping power despite a bleak election outlook

Indian general election: Front-runner attempts to temper Hindu extremism

Tim McGirk in New Delhi on the election chief who 'eats politicians for breakfast'

After 20 years' feuding, a mother and son are campaigning against Rao's government, writes Tim McGirk