The dog trainer gave notice a week ago. The pup had shamed him, ignoring rather than listening to his commands. Around the time he was drafting his resignation - the first time, he says, he was conceding defeat to a canine - food writer Farzana Contractor had checked into a resort accompanied by her two-year-old Apso that was the model of good behaviour, perched on her lap through all our meals in the dining hall where it did not once raise its head to sniff at the delicacies being served up by a celebrity chef. Coming back home, I was greeted by the sight of our family pet on the dining table licking the eggs akuri, sausages, papaya, oats, toast and slabs of butter clean in no particular order - with not a burp to show for it."Beagles," said his trainer, at the time when he was still there and we could reprimand him for the mutt's lack of progress on the behaviour front, "have an obedience issue." But at the design shop where I often work, the owner's Beagle, of approximately the same

The family in the doghouse

Business Standard

On the occasion of Women's Day, Close the Gap, an Oxfam initiative, posed some interesting questions in the social media: "Can women feel safe in Delhi when 95 per cent of police are men? Why do women make up less than 12 per cent of the Lok Sabha? Why are only five per cent of women in India's corporate a part of the top management?"Just as I was pondering over these, my cleaner Anita walked in. I decided to pose Close the Gap's big questions to her. "How would it make any difference to women like me, if some upper-class women became heads of rich companies?" she asked doubtfully. "What would really make a difference to women like me is the inclusion of women in fields that concern us!"Her first suggestion was that there should be lady bus conductors in all public buses. "Only women who have to travel in buses everyday will understand what an improvement this would make to our daily lives." She said fixed working hours made women like her easy prey for men on the prowl. "Every evening

A heaven for women

It is impossible to watch Lincoln without noticing its umbilical affiliation to the gay marriage debate and the film's sly use of filmic techniques to drive home this point

Lincoln, personal and political

There was a twinge within when I read the news that the Fiat or Premier Padmini taxis of Mumbai were almost on the way out. How could the cluster of sight (black and yellow), sound (defiant burr of the poorly silenced engine on quick acceleration) and smell (merry, pre-global-warming-fear exhaust) from those defiant sturdy little bugs by which you knew the great city be gone? It is like London without its black cabs or Kolkata without its Ambassador taxis; you cannot have one without the other.The few that still plied the roads will soon cross 25 and so are to be put to sleep mandatorily; and they don't make them any more. Change, progress and new technology have left their manufacturers behind. All good things must someday be deemed to have lived their time and be passed on, even if it is something like your 20-year-old shoes, which were as comfortable as, well, an old pair             of shoes.But what put my back up was the information further down in the piece that the new replacem

What price progress?

Mexico is moving away from dependence on oil revenue, and is positioned to be the next breakout nation

Mexico breaking good

Indian agriculture is a success story too

Not just suicides

<B>Competition is forcing art dealers to create better exhibition environs.</B>


The big race for space

How profitable is China was the title of a very interesting article written by Jonathan Anderson of UBS. It attempts to answer the above question using basic macro economic data, and simple

A P: How profitable is China?

Despite the Tsunami-ravaged start, this new year promises to be yet another landmark one for India in more ways than one. The optimism on the economic front seems to be at an all-time high, and the

Arvind Singhal: Innovating to thrive

Indias competitiveness in services is now spreading to parts of manufacturing. One of such newly emerging sectors is steel. 


Subir Roy: India gets competitive in steel

It is funny how protectionist policies work, because they usually protect the guy you didnt have in mind as a beneficiary. 


T N Ninan: How to save $1bn

Tata Consultancy Services, the largest Indian software company, has announced two major international wins over as many days, thus clearly consolidating its leadership position. 


TCS leads

Two market leaders in different tech sectors came through with their Q2 2005-06 results last Wednesday. It would not have made a difference in a falling market, but neither Wipro nor Biocon delivered

A tale of two companies

Public sector oil companies, which have to grapple with the huge losses imposed on them by the government policy not to free petroleum prices, now have another manmade problem to deal with. They are

Stop sniping at ONGC

The future of Indias largest urban redevelopment project has been plunged into uncertainty after the Bombay High Courts decision to put on hold the National Textile Corporations sale of surplus

Mill land mess

As Indian Oil Corporations (IOCs) director for planning and business development, Naresh Kumar Nayyar was crucial to the companys overseas ambitions, whether in dealing with the Iranians for

Jyoti Mukul : Good catch for ONGC-Mittal

The long-delayed privatisation of the Great Eastern Hotel and the takeover of Dunlop, creating hopes for its revival, have strong symbolic significance for West Bengal. Symbolic because the

Green leaves in Bengal

A lot has been talked and written about on the opportunity at the so-called bottom of the pyramid. Indeed, some of the brightest and smartest entrepreneurs, and some of the largest Indian businesses,

Arvind Singhal: The opportunity in luxury

There must be a god. And surely he reads this column! How else could my prayer, articulated in this space only the other month, be answered? 


God reads this column

Thus far, there hasnt exactly been a deluge of books about food which are not cookbooks. Not, at least, those written by Indians, for Indians. Things, happily, look set to change: last week saw the

The good food guides

During this week the worlds leading chip manufacturer, Intel, and the leading software company, Microsoft, have between themselves announced plans to invest over $2.3 billion (Rs 10,600 crore) in

IT gets better

Business Standard brings you expert opinions on various issues

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