People read biographies for different reasons.

A life of contradictions

Business Standard

Imagine being kicked so hard by a Bactrian camel that you somersault into the air and actually bounce a couple of times before landing painfully on your shoulder, injuring it. Your entire body hurts, you feel humiliated &mdash; and now you&rsquo;re a little afraid of these irascible, moody beasts you&rsquo;re supposed to be managing. So what do you do? Well, if you&rsquo;re Sucheta Kandethankar, you just pick yourself up and continue walking the rest of your 1,636-km trek across the Gobi desert.

The spirit of adventure

The Corsica Masters always draws a large field due to a combination of generous funding, good organisation and exotic location. The 15th edition featured around 800 players, lured by 124 sponsors (!) and a prize fund of Euro 95,000. There was one unpleasant incident when GM Ehsan Ghaem Maghami of Iran refused to play against FM Ehud Shachar of Israel in round four.

Chess (#979)

A colleague disclosed some days ago that his grandmother was a student of Begum Akhtar, undoubtedly the greatest singer ever of ghazals, in Lucknow. The discussion next moved to books on Akhtar and Lucknow &mdash; there aren&rsquo;t too many.

The last lines of Lucknow

Priyanka Sharma offers a sneak peek into the stress-ridden and complex world of concert management.

No show

The quest for shipwrecks and sunken treasures is serious business.

Treasure hunters

Bhupesh Bhandari tells the inside story of how Hero Honda became Hero MotoCorp.

A new Hero

The Maserati GranCabrio Sport is aphrodisiac on four wheels.

The Gran scheme of things

The top 10 business bestsellers

The women&rsquo;s footwear market is estimated to be Rs 8,000 crore which is projected to grow at a CAGR of 10 per cent to reach Rs 12,900 crore by 2015. Of this, 65 per cent is the unorganised segment and the rest 35 per cent, totaling Rs 2,800 crore, is the organised segment.

KIT: Women's footwear market in India

    According to business history, China was the largest economy in the world from 1500 AD to 1890AD, but its run at the top position was interrupted briefly in 1700 AD by another country. Name it.

The Strategist Quiz (#226)

&nbsp;

    Who invented an approach to measure competitive sales results that made the concept of &ldquo;market share&rdquo; a practical management tool?
    Arthur C Nielsen
    &nbsp;
    What is common to the world&rsquo;s first practical wrist watch made in 1904 and the presidential aircraft used by the Brazilian government?
    Both are named after Santos Dumont, the Brazilian Aviation pioneer
    &nbsp;
    Who said &ldquo;Success is 99 per cent failure&rdquo;?
    Soichiro

Answers to last week's quiz (#225)

The recurring labour unrest at the country&rsquo;s largest passenger car maker Maruti Suzuki clearly shows effective dispute resolution should be a strategic priority for Indian corporations, say analysts. Four leaders present their views.

Lessons from Maruti

Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode (IIMK) has completed the summer placement process for the 15the batch of its flagship PGP programme comprising 343 students. IIMK continued to maintain its 100 per cent&nbsp; placement record with over 100 firms making internship offers spanning across all verticals. The process saw the participation of over 35 firms that took part for the first time in addition to the other regular companies. Many of the firms made&nbsp;a record number of offers, the highest over several years.

IIMK sees record offers this season

The relaunch of Duke&rsquo;s is a part of the food &amp; beverage major&rsquo;s strategy to check strong local players from taking away the pie.

Pepsi plays regional card

Robert Senior, is the chairman of Publicis-Groupe-owned Saatchi and Saatchi&rsquo;s worldwide creative board, was in New Delhi for Ad Asia. He spoke to Sayantani Kar and Priyanka Singh on the emerging trends in advertising.

Q&A: Robert Senior, Chairman, Saatchi and Saatchi

India has over six million blind people and over 50 million malnourished children. It also has one of the highest rates of maternal deaths at childbirth in the world. Just some statistics that highlight the shortcomings of the healthcare sector in the world&rsquo;s second most populous nation. But there is hope in the form of some private ventures that are addressing these problems and are establishing global standards for cost, quality and delivery. In the first of our three-part series on sustainability, Sachin Joshi writes about LifeSpring Hospitals, a network of maternity and child-care hospitals that provides high-quality, low cost maternal services to low-income women with clear and transparent pricing.

A spring of hope

Industrial lubricant manufacturer Mobil has consolidated its line of energy efficient products, Mobil SHC, under a single umbrella with a separate identity and logo. Mobil SHC, the premiere line of synthetic lubricants for industry, was launched in India earlier this year.

Mobil: Efficiency rules

Yachting, once a blue-blooded pastime, is the new sunrise sport among corporates. Aashim Mongia, managing director, West Coast Marine Yacht Services, which promotes fractional ownership options through trade and boat shows, says, &ldquo;The number of leisure boats registered with the Mumbai authorities has risen from 100 vessels in 2004 to 287 in 2010, representing a 14 per cent compounded annual growth rate.

Yachting in India: Sea change

As developing markets take centre stage, global experts offer insights on the new idiom of marketing.

How to deal with uncertainty

GlaxoSmithKline is piggybacking the Rs 1,600-crore brand to step into newer product categories.

Stretching the Horlicks core

- Find Specials News, Features, Analysis and more at Business Standard. Full coverage of Goafest 2014

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