Captain Moonlight's Notebook: Minister in resignation shock

WHAT DOES an Indian cabinet minister do when things for which he is responsible go wrong? Amazingly, he offers to resign. The civil aviation minister, Madhavrao Scindia, quit yesterday only hours after one of his strike-breaking aircraft, leased from Uzbekistan, crashed at Delhi. India may be a troubled country, but it can teach us lessons in political honour. What would Norman Lamont have done? Many statements blaming the weather, probably, and a ringing declaration that the crash offered a marvellous opportunity for Delhi's scrap-metal merchants.