WHEN the News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch, unarguably the most puissant citizen of the global village, flew in on his private jet for a mystery pow-wow with brand-new Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda and left hours later just as unobtrusively as he had arrived, he wasn't just testing the postelection political waters. He was doing precisely what he has always been a past master at. Setting the pace.