Comma and colon

He was looking very happy and behaved like a licky Labrador that had met its master after a long time. Although Rakshas’ friendly overtures of late is not extraordinary, this one, I knew, had some special reason. Was he planning to ask me to have daru with him?
He did not keep me guessing for long. After the mandatory shake hand (another guy who insists on shaking your hand) he jumped to the topic. "Hey what is this wrong story going on your page? Don’t commit such blunders! Don’t you know it’s increment time?"
Now, increment time is something that does not bother me. I think the software is programmed. Ringmaster has his preferences and sadly a good number of them are duds, except for a Morality here or a Variety there. I almost made a face to indicate that increment is no weapon that could be used against me. But I was curious to know about this error because I remember going through the page thoroughly.
"What, where," I asked impatiently. He ran back to get a copy of the paper, opened the page and showed me the ‘blunder.’ "So what is wrong with it?" "Yaar, don’t you see that the main story is about CPM and BJP opposing the nuclear deal and this inset’s heading is also on the same. But you have some copy from Islamabad in it."
The copy from Islamabad was about Pakistan opposing the nuclear deal between India and US This was used as an inset in a report which talked about CPM’s and BJP’s opposition to the deal. I had to explain to Rakshas that the heading, ‘Look who is with CPM, BJP!’ meant the parties were in the same company as Pakistan.
"Oooooooooo, you meant that! OK! That is ALSO correct! What I thought you meant was that the BJP is with CPM." "Yeah that’s the main story, so why should the inset say the same?"
Rakshas does not seem to know where one uses a comma and where one would use a colon or dash. Or, may be, the eager beaver was trying to look for mistakes and fell for this one. (Hillgoat, use ‘&’ next time, no commas!).
But no sooner had I finished explaining, he left the scene. I thought I was at Sriharikota watching a PSLV launch.
CC