AHMEDABAD: After all the anti-HRD ministry posturing by its dons and alumni, the governing board of the cash-rich Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) has decided to pay heed to Murli Manohar Joshis argument that the ministrys precious resources should be spent on primary education and not on institutes of higher learning like the IIMs. In a statement issued from Bangalore, which appears to be aimed at appeasing the peeved minister, the boards chairman NR Narayana Murthy has said, Recently, it was reported that our respected minister Murli Manohar Joshis request for a budget of Rs 32,000 crore was pruned to Rs 17,000 crore. In this light, the board feels that such funds available should first be channelled to improve primary education in our country. The HRD minister had suggested that IIMs keep only Rs 20 crore of their corpus with themselves and turn over the rest to promote primary education. Although Narayana Murthys statement does not say anything about this, some dons at the institute fear that the statement could well be a prelude to such an exercise. IIM-A has a corpus of Rs 98 crore.

A paltry sum of Rs 30,000 is all that Chand Khan required to transform from an automobile mechanic to an arms conduit, who played a crucial role in the terrorists attack on Akshardham temple in Gandhinagar. On September 26, 2002 , two terrorists, aged between 19 and 21, had stormed the premises of Akshardham armed with AK 47s, ammunition and grenades. Before they were shot down by NSG commandos the next morning, the terrorists (with alleged links with LeT) had shot down 33 persons. Khan along with five others, all from Ahmedabad, have been arrested and booked under Pota by the crime branch of Ahmedabad. Khan was first arrested by the J&K police. In his confessional statement (a copy of which is now with TNN) before the crime branch of Ahmedabad police, Khan (30) has claimed that the motivating factors behind his association with the terrorist conspiracy were two - a sum of Rs 30,000 and the wish to avenge humiliation meted out to him by a corrupt police official of Jammu and Kashmir. Khans involvement started with his desire to kill a police inspector, Basir Ahmad, who used to often take freebies at his automobile repair shop - Chand Garage - near KP Road in Anantnag district of J&K. Ahmad allegedly used to get his Maruti car serviced but never compensated Khan in full. Khan was frustrated enough by the situation to have approached a friend Mohmmad Yasin and asked for a bomb to blow up the car of the police officer.