Crossing the desert

FOR businessmen scrambling to raise money in a bid to stave off bankruptcy, conference rooms can feel like little more than gilded prison cells. Few will feel this more acutely than Subrata Roy, the boss of Sahara, an Indian conglomerate: over the past 23 months he has worked out of a conference suite in a suburban Delhi jail. Held on charges of contempt of court relating to the sale of dodgy small-deposit plans to the masses—which the Supreme Court has ordered to be repaid, and whose proceeds he invested in property and other trophy assets—he has struggled to raise 100 billion rupees ($1.5 billion) in bail despite claiming his business is worth several times that.