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Who's Who in the Tata Tapes controversy

A guide to the dramatis personae:

Brojen Gogoi: Tata Tea executive at the heart of the storm. He is alleged to have links with the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom.

R K Krishna Kumar: Managing director, Tata Tea. He was also appointed managing director of the high-profile Indian Hotels company last month. After Tata Tea's alleged links with ULFA became public last month, Krishna Kumar was interrogated by the Assam police.

Keshub Mahindra: Chairman, Mahindra & Mahindra. A director of both Bombay Dyeing and TISCO.

Jayant Malhoutra: Chairman, J K Helene Curtis and Murad Black. He is also an Independent member of the Rajya Sabha. Extremely well-connected with friends in every party, he is very close to three former prime ministers -- Chandra Shekhar, P V Narasimha Rao and H D Deve Gowda. Malhoutra -- whose wife Barotra is the daughter of one of Nehru's ministers -- is said to have played a key role in destabilising the V P Singh government in 1990 and also arranging the BJP-BSP alliance the first time round in 1995. He has subsequently fallen out with BSP supremo Kanshi Ram.

Field Marshal Sam Maneckshaw: A director of the Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation, one of Nusli Wadia's companies.

Ritu Sarin: The Indian Express reporter who broke the story. She is said to be close to agencies like the Intelligence Bureau. As a correspondent for Sunday magazine, her interview with Giani Zail Singh revealed how the then President had been offered money to dismiss then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. Sarin has also written a book on Indira Gandhi's assassination.

Ratan Tata: Chairman, Tata Sons.

Nusli Wadia: Chairman, Bombay Dyeing and director Tata Sons. Wadia, Mohammad Ali Jinnah's grandson, is close to Ratan Tata. Unlike Tata, he is politically savvy and well-connected in Delhi's power circles. Ironically, the Tata Tape transcripts were published in the Indian Express,a newspaper he was known to exert substantial influence over through the eighties and early nineties.