Despite the meltdown of their fortunes, our billionaires' love for gizmos and gadgets hasn't waned, finds Priyanka Joshi.

Just one more toy, please

Business Standard

First blood goes to Veselin Topalov in the &ldquo;Candidates Final&rdquo; match versus Gata Kamsky. Playing at home in Sofia, the Bulgarian GM delighted his fans with a polished and energetic display in Game Two, winning with black inside 40 moves. What is more, he did it from a &ldquo;drawing system&rdquo;, the Spanish Berlin Defence.

CHESS #577

Never mind political correctness, rich homes will boast of bespoke furniture, bigger accessories, mirrors and a sense of drama this year, predicts Abhilasha Ojha.

If you've got it, flaunt it!

The meltdown has wiped away 61 per cent of the wealth of the country&rsquo;s top billionaires.

Poor little rich boys

Young, richer buyers are gravitating towards younger artists. And thanks to the meltdown, masters - even European masters - are within reach. Then, there are sculptures that will dominate... Kishore Singh picks out your art buys.

The new blue chips

The Germans have a word that describes the feeling of delight people have at someone else&rsquo;s misfortune: Schadenfreude (pronounced shahd-n-froi-duh). There, however, is no recognised word that describes the pleasure one gets at someone else&rsquo;s good fortune.

CEO pay: Storm before the lull

Volkswagen introduces new technologies to reduce fuel consumption and emissions.

Blue is green

I&rsquo;m very happy about the no-plastic-bags rule that recently came into effect, because garbage makes me grouchy. The streets in our cities are strewn with filth and stinking waste. Our hillsides are blotched with discarded plastic bags and cups. One of the saddest things I&rsquo;ve ever seen is the sight of baby elephants, in the heart of a national park, eating plastic plates thrown there by careless picnickers.

Dirty talk

When you are a billionaire, you better have a car that&rsquo;s one in a billion.

A billion to one

What does it take to feel like a billionaire? Fancy boats, private planes, rocks on your fingers, an IPL team or two, many homes (and if you are anything like the Japanese tycoon who held a unique competition recently between his many mistresses, a companion each in each of these homes), many cars, old spirits, modern art, post-modern gizmos et cetera? Do you covet these badges?
For any one living on the &ldquo;fringes&rdquo; of this exclusive club, it would be but natural to aspire to a

Who wants to be a billionaire?

If James Champy wasn&rsquo;t the chairman of Perot Systems&rsquo; consulting practice and a best-selling writer, he&rsquo;d probably be a motivational speaker. And his latest book, Inspire!: Why Customers Come Back, which he launched at the recently- concluded Nasscom summit in Mumbai, only reiterates that.

Learn to deliver more with less: James Champy

Long dismissed as sitting ducks for private and foreign banks, state-owned banks have undergone a complete makeover to attract new customer segments. Here's how.

Public sector banks: A brand new mould

EVERY BUSINESS IS A GROWTH BUSINESS
Authors: Noel M Tichy and Ram Charan
Publisher: Random House
Price: Rs 515
ISBN: 0812933052.
A RANDOM WALK DOWN WALL STREET
Author: Burton G Malkiel
Publisher: W W Norton &amp; Company
Price: Rs 1,657
ISBN: 0393062457.
BILLIONS OF ENTREPRENEURS
Author: Tarun Khanna
Publisher: Penguin
Price: Rs 595
ISBN: 0670081485.
ZIGLAR ON SELLING
Authors: Zig Ziglar
Publisher: Jaico Publishing House
Price: Rs 250
ISBN: 8179925870.
GROWING GREAT

The top 10 business bestsellers

The Indian textile and apparel market is worth $52.5 billion (Rs 2,60,505 crore).

KIT: The Indian textile industry

&nbsp;

    With which insurance company are the following linked: House insurance of Sir Isaac Newton and Robert Walpole, Britain&rsquo;s first prime minister, and the personal accident policy taken out by Winston Churchill in the 1890s?&nbsp;
    &nbsp;
    Whose thought marked a tectonic shift in the marketing of cars in 1924, when he decided that each car model should appeal to a distinct population segment and, therefore, with each new model came a new name?&nbsp;
    &nbsp;
   

The Strategist Quiz (#087)

    Link the West Indies cricketers Lance Gibbs, Carl Hooper and Shivnarine Chanderpaul to the name of a product that is mostly found in coffee bars and restaurants.

Answers to last week&#39s quiz (#086)

How McDonald's is trying to get more out of its stores.

Bigger bites

Designer Samant Chauhan is the toast of the fashion world for his work on silk. He tells Anoothi Vishal about his incredible journey from interior Bihar.

From Bhagalpur to London

Lawyer Hemant Batra has a fetish for gadgets, and he obeys the injunction, If you&rsquo;ve got it, flaunt it. &ldquo;They are the only things which I splurge on, and I have always been fascinated by them,&rdquo; says the managing partner of Kaden Boriss, a law firm which specialises in corporate and commercial legal practices.

'I change gadgets every six months'

Live-blogging is one of the great by-products of the Internet age. Reading live-commentary websites while a cricket or tennis match is on is often more entertaining than watching the match itself (on the TV strategically placed next to the computer; switching between the two screens is terrible for the eyes, but that&rsquo;s another story).

The online Oscars

Veselin Topalov has won his de facto Candidates Final match against Gata Kamsky, to set up a title match versus Anand in late 2009. The decisive Game 7 was a thriller. Kamsky was behind 1-2 and needing to win, he accepted a razor-sharp gambit in the French defence. Through an excellent mixture of defence and counter-attack, Kamsky set up a winning position before he blundered in extreme time trouble.

CHESS #578

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

Page 1184 - Supplements