The paying public wanted a diesel Corolla. Toyota finally gives them one.

Altis and much more

Business Standard

Don&rsquo;t have room for big, bulky speakers or have no use for headphones? Aabhas Sharma chooses some compact and powerful portable speakers that combine quality with ease of use.

Turn it on

For the last eight years I have been driving a Mahindra Scorpio. My current one is my second. I always have a 4x4 vehicle (earlier it used to be a Gypsy) because I travel to remote places where roads are often non-existent, streams have to be forded and landslides have to be negotiated. I have been quite happy with my Scorpios (M&amp;M have given me excellent service), having forded a stream where the water was up to the wheel arches! But I am thinking of upgrading to a Toyota Fortuner.

Off-road dreams

The government&rsquo;s attitude towards wine has stifled its growth in India.

Big brother  not needed

The iPod is not the only, and perhaps not even the best, digital music player. Here are some of the alternatives.

Perfect partner

Thanks to CWG 2010, Delhi University students find themselves homeless.

At the sacrificial altar

The 2010 general election in Britain saw a record eight Members of Parliament of Indian origin enter the House of Commons.

The changing face of Westminster

Dortmund has been an amazing ride with lots of decisive games and action. The Sofia Rules may have jazzed it up or it's simply that everybody is spoiling for a fight. By round six, everyone had suffered at least one loss.

CHESS #637

I&rsquo;m really annoyed with my little brother.

Bieber blues

With the invasion of e-readers, could the future of the book as a physical object made of paper and ink be as tentative and bleak as that of the tiger.

The future of books

Atul Gawande is a surgeon and a staff writer for the New Yorker. His latest book is well worth your time.

A good man to know

Reading article after article online at breakneck speed to complete this column, I was almost set to laughing by the irony: here I was, trying to summarise what people are saying about the effect of Internet and the asteroid-field of small doses of information with which we are surrounded, not to say bombarded, and I was scarcely getting the time to assimilate what I was seeing. How could I write about the danger to &lsquo;deep reading&rsquo; without having the time to do &lsquo;deep thinking&rsquo;? Amusement turned to worry as opinion, in the articles I was (let&rsquo;s be truthful) skim-reading, turned to fact &mdash; courtesy an essay by Nicholas Carr in the June issue of Wired.com magazine.

It's the Net, stupid

As yoga expands its mass appeal in the US, the market for everything yoga is expanding faster than we can exhale.

Hold your breath

Baskin-Robbins turned 65 this month. It is much younger in India. Owned by the US-based Dunkin&rsquo; Brands, Baskin-Robbins entered the country 17 years ago in 1993 with a couple of company-run outlets in Mumbai and Delhi. Over the years, it has expanded to 400 franchisee outlets spread across 95 cities and is also available at some 600 hotels and restaurants and at about 600 modern-format retail stores. The chain, which is run by Graviss Foods in India and the SAARC region, says it has always grown close to 25 per cent year on year in India.

Baskin-Robbins: Small is big

Indian handset brands have taken on their multinational rivals.

Local call

From small kiranas to banks to potentially entire FMCG chains &mdash; all have a digital date with money transfers on cellphones.

Mobile money: The next e-revolution for masses

What are smartphones? All too often, they are perceived to be just boring business phones, or worse. For sure, the most common perception is that smartphones are intended for business or official purposes only. You really can&rsquo;t blame anyone for thinking this. After all, in this day and age, such phones are named after confectionary items and come with a bubblegum type of imagery.

Smarter than you think, and more...

You can&rsquo;t fault Emami Director Aditya Agarwal when he says: &ldquo;Our strength lies in marketing.&rdquo; With 16 per cent of its turnover reserved for marketing, the Kolkata-headquartered Emami, maker of FMCG and over-the-counter health products, is undoubtedly a marketing-led company. It has brands like Himani BoroPlus (Rs 250 crore in size) and Navratna (Rs 300 crore) in its portfolio and wants to launch eight to ten products every year. From a little over Rs 1,000 crore in 2009-10, it wants to become Rs 2,000 crore in size within two years.

Oiling the chain

Bollywood actress Bipasha Basu is revamping her image on the digital medium with her website, re-launched by Hungama. The 31-year-old actress is eager to go the tech way, which means she will now be seen actively on Twitter and Facebook, recording her ringtones on the mobile space and actively participating through blogs on her website. Of course, the subjects are what Basu knows the best &mdash; films, fashion and fitness.

Bipasha Basu gets a digital re-launch

The Logan, Mahindra &amp; Mahindra&rsquo;s sedan, hadn&rsquo;t really set the tarmac on fire. It was left far behind in the sweepstakes by rivals like the Maruti Suzuki Swift DZire, Ford Fiesta and Hyundai Accent. It had started as a venture between Mahindra &amp; Mahindra and Renault. But once the Renault-Nissan alliance began talking to others &mdash; Bajaj Auto for an ultra-low-cost car and Ashok Leyland for trucks &mdash; buyers weren&rsquo;t sure about the product. Car makers have learnt that Indians do not buy cars unless they are convinced the company is going to be around for the long haul; otherwise, there is a question mark over service, spares and resale. Also, taxi companies began to buy the Logan in large numbers. This brought the image of the car down in the eye of the consumer.

Logan's new slogan

S serious audiophiles will agree that a good pair of earphones can be critical for your music experience. Here are two latest pairs of audio delights that we stumbled upon.

Head towards a better sound quality

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