Here is a collection of &ldquo;new Indian writing&rdquo; that defies the present state of Indian writing: its fiction is more interesting than its non-fiction, though there is less of it.

Fiction is better than fact

Business Standard

Ali Zafar talks to Aabhas Sharma about his Bollywood dreams and how he is more of a musician than an actor.

Bollywood calling

It&rsquo;s been a tumultuous month for technology. Apple lost Steve Jobs as CEO, Hewlett Packard (HP) gave up the tablet war even before it got going, Financial Times pulled the plug on Apple by refusing to share data and revenues and Sony introduced the world&rsquo;s first foldable tablet. The world of technology has clicked into an irreversible trajectory, as has the interface between man and device. Web consumption is firmly in mobile telephony territory &mdash; cheap, cheerful, transformational, and in the process of creating new king makers.

Tablet wars

ITC&rsquo;s cigar brand Armenteros, which, until now, was retailed through hotels, restaurants and caf&eacute;s, will now be showcased at the Cigar Republic store in ITC Maurya, New Delhi. Luxury brand management company Kreative Marketing has set up the first retail store for Armenteros. Kajal Malhotra, founder, Kreative Marketing, who has over five years of experience in cigar retail, does not rule out the possibility of more such stores in the future.

ITC: On a roll

Horn Ok Please
Author: Kartik Iyengar Publisher: Horn Ok Please
Price: Rs 100
ISBN: 9780615460550.
The Steve Jobs Way
Author: Jay Elliot and William L Simon
Publisher: Jaico Publishing House
Price: Rs 250
ISBN: 9788179927687.
I Have a Dream
Author: Rashmi Bansal 
Publisher: Westland Tranquebar Press And Eastwest 
Price: Rs 150
ISBN: 9789380658384.
Connect The Dots
Author: Rashmi Bansal
Publisher: Eklavya 
Price: Rs 150
ISBN: 9788190453028.
108 Mantras For Financial Success
Publisher: Network18 Publications
Price: Rs 99
ISBN: 9788190779517.
The Winning Way
Authors: Harsha Bhogle and Anita Bhogle 
Publisher: Westland Tranquebar Press And Eastwest
Price: Rs 200
ISBN: 9789380658322.
You Can Sell
Author: Shiv Khera 
Publisher: Rupa &amp; Co
Price: Rs 195
ISBN: 9788129116000.
The Habit of Winning 
Author: Prakash Iyer 
Publisher: Penguin
Price: Rs 299
ISBN: 9780143068280.
Corporate Chanakya
Author: Radhakrishnan Pillai 
Publisher: Jaico Publishing

The top 10 business bestsellers

Indian footwear market is estimated at about Rs 19,900 crore with a growth rate of 8-10 per cent.

KIT: Footwear market in India

    What is frugal engineering better known as? Name the person who coined this term.

The Strategist Quiz (#217)

&nbsp;

    Which brand has a programme called Power 88 that aims to grow its share of the global market and bring the operating profit to 8 percent each?
    Nissan
    &nbsp;
    The board of directors of which company once considered the following for the top job: John Sculley, Bill Gates and Scott McNealy? This was after they forced an old-timer CEO of their company, who was rated as one their worst CEOs, to resign in the early 90s
    IBM
    &nbsp;
    By joining what will one

Answers to last week&#39;s quiz (#216)

PC giant Dell is adding muscle to its services division in India to emerge as an end-to-end solutions provider.

Hard drive

September is proving to be yet another busy month for the auto sector as a slew of launches are expected across the board. From luxury cars to SUVs to diesel variants of existing cars and new motorcycles, the run-up to the festive season is proving to be promising. One manufacturer who hopes to really make a big dent in the market is Honda Siel with the launch of the Brio hatchback, their cheapest car at a time when their marketshare has taken quite a beating.

Honda steps on the gas

As the rest of the world raves about 10-inch tablet PCs from Samsung and Apple, Indian vendors seem to be betting on cheaper 7-inch tablet PCs to lure buyers. But these tablet PCs have begun to crowd retail shelves, with a new model being launched every month.

Go glocal with tablet PCs

A 600 pound gorilla which can run like a cheetah -- that sounds like the main character of a Bollywood potboiler. But Vikram Malhotra is dead serious. He wants Viacom 18 Motion Pictures to be a bit of both.

Viacom18: Small is the way to go

Social networking isn&rsquo;t confined to the fully-abled community anymore &mdash; the sites have opened up new avenues to connect the hearing impaired and deaf communities. Rajesh Ketkar, a 32-year-old hearing impaired person, who heads a Vadodara-based NGO, Mook Badhir Mandal (MBM), has found a solution to problems faced by the hearing impaired in RockeTalk &mdash; a mobile social networking platform.

Mobile social networking sees explosive growth

The communication for the new Ford Fiesta demonstrates the potential of the internet to divvy up and make quick work of the otherwise tedious task of building buzz.

Net, set, go

Are we becoming insensitive as a race?! It may seem a question out of the blue but this feeling certainly crosses our minds once in a while. We don&rsquo;t need to cudgel up our brains to answer this question because on some level we already know the answer. Just open your morning newspaper or turn on any news channel and you&rsquo;d know what am I talking about. Insensitivity encompasses us in various forms today.

Time to Review an 'Ideal Family'?

India is ranked third when it comes to minutes of mobile usage across the globe. The telecom sector alone directly contributes as much as $35 billion annually to the economy. It is estimated to have offered employment to as many as 150,000 employees during the recession. The prosperity that the telecom sector has weaved into the Indian society is one of the main reasons for the growth of the middle income group, says this column.

'Roti, kapda, makaan aur mobile'

Raj Nayak is described as the &lsquo;the superman of television ad sales&rsquo;. The fact is that the 48-year-old moved out of plain ad sales while at Star TV in its Kaun Banega Crorepati days. Earlier this year, Nayak joined Colors as the CEO. Colors is a general entertainment channel from Viacom18, a joint venture between the Rs 1,500-crore Network18 and the $9.4 billion American media major Viacom.

Q&A: Raj Nayak, CEO, Colors

Cement major Binani Cement is looking to expand its horizon, literally. The company has come out with a new television commercial (TVC) to highlight its grand plans and a larger than life image. Starting with the first cement plant in Sirohi, Rajasthan, in 1997, the company, under the Braj Binani Group, has expanded into foreign territories like China, Mauritius, Dubai, Sudan and Africa, and wants an image makeover to portray itself as a global brand.

Binani Cement: Larger than life

We all hate rejection. This time it is a cocoa bean crying for attention as it is cast off by a cocoa bean expert during a selection procedure. Sounds hilarious? Well, it is the creative route chosen by Cadbury in its latest commercial for Bournville. This is to drive home the message that the dark chocolate brand is crafted from the finest cocoa beans of Ghana (Africa) ensuring no compromise on taste.

Bournville targets the sweet spot

Starting next week, sales executives across 4000 Vodafone mini-stores in tier 2 and 3 towns will be hard selling its co-branded Facebook phone (officially launched yesterday), which costs Rs 4,950 and comes with free unlimited access for a year to the social networking site. The company is relying on Vodafone Blue, a device that will be manufactured by Alcatel, to find a consumer following in non-metros.

Vodafone Blue to woo data users with Facebook phone

Its first two million customers took 18 months to come on board. The next two million has taken eight months &ndash; something that Videocon d2h announced early this month.

This kid grows up fast

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