Nik,

Thanks for this post.  (And all your other posts, by the way - you're one of my favorite reads quite often).

In my response to "premie responder" below, I mentioned to him/her that Rawat is on a campaign to appear legitimate to the public.  This campaign has been published and outlined on one of Rawat's own websites.  It comes from a newsletter called Connect, from October 2004.

Here are the ways that Rawat and his premies have thought up for trying to improve Rawat public image:  publish interviews in obscure magazines in which all the questions are rigged,  contact mayors and governors and request that they give Rawat an honor of some sort,  book Rawat at prestigious buildings and institutions such as U.N. and Harvard and have that prestige rub off on Rawat, do charitable work and brag about it.  See link for other brilliant ideas.  Scroll down to Richard Cooper.