As boarders, one of our favourite pastimes in school was crossing out dates in our notebooks and counting the days to our vacations. Sensing the ardent need for calendars, some of us even began making these as gifts for our friends.

Mark those dates

Business Standard

Ramalinga Raju cooked his books - and his goose - but India&rsquo;s history of scams is long and innovative.

Financial innovations: A history of scams

Who says you can&rsquo;t make a people mover with lots of passion? Presenting the Mahindra Xylo road test BIJOY KUMAR Y.

The Xylo factor

My Ford Fiesta 1.6 is over three years old and I want to move on to another car. Before buying the Fiesta, I had wanted to buy the Honda Civic, but that meant stretching my budget a little bit. Well, things are not that improved that I can go for the Civic now, what with the downturn and all. But I still want to sell off my Fiesta and get another car. And I love driving.

Over the H

Architect Namita Singh spent two decades on her biggest project, the Indian Naval Academy in Kerala. She tells Aabhas Sharma all about it.

Shipshape at last

Auroville-based Pierre Legrand takes Kishore Singh on a grand tour of his studio.

Deciphering the code

Should art be necessarily beautiful? This is the heart of the matter of Delhi&rsquo;s &ldquo;sprout controversy&rdquo;.

Sprouting options

Vandana Singh's unusual short stories are less science fiction than speculative fiction.

Strangeness everywhere

Thubten Samphel is the spokesperson of Tibet&rsquo;s government-in-exile. In this coming-of-age novel he tells the story of the lives of a handful of Tibetans from their student days in Delhi, in the early 1980s, into adulthood. The main character Tashi founds a Tibetan Communist Party (offending his fellow exiles), but is eventually recognised as a reincarnated lama. RRISHI RAOTE met the author at the refugee settlement of Majnu ka Tilla.

Examining the nature of exile

I little remember civil Mhow, having spent only a part of my childhood in the cantonment here, so a book set in its Raj nostalgia layered with a more recent journey of discovery becomes a sympathetic read.

Sepia memories

The group has made a third entry into mobile telephony.

Reliance rings thrice

    Recently, Tesco introduced a new food item in its UK supermarkets which is strictly not sold to children.

Answers to last week&#39;s quiz (#081)

After the financial crisis and the Satyam fiasco closer home, the sanctity of leadership has been eroded. Leaders managing companies around the world are now left with the task of weathering the global downturn as well as steering their teams to avoid major setbacks. They could find some answers in business advisor Ram Charan&rsquo;s new book, Leadership in the Era of Economic Uncertainty: The New Rules for Getting the Right Things Done in Difficult Times. This 69-year-old business guru, with unhindered access to boardrooms around the world, such as at GE, P&amp;G, Verizon, Dupont, Honeywell, KLM and Emaar, having mentored their powerful CEOs, has been venerated for his insights on issues relating to strategy, succession and corporate governance for decades.

Innovation is not negotiable: Ram Charan

&ldquo;Do you need to get back to rigorous studies?&rdquo; asked Patricia.&rdquo;I am getting rusty, and this programme is for people with 20 years of experience,&rdquo; I replied, hoping she would donate some savings to finance my re-education. She did not.

Harvard&#39;s hard lessons

What companies need to do to get the best out of their people.

Managing Performance in a downturn

    The words sparking, incredible, a different light, uniquely and amazing appear in the advertisements for a certain category in APAC countries. Name the category.

The Strategist Quiz (#082)

BUSINESS OBJECTS XI THE COMPLETE REFERENCE
Author: Cindi Howson
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Price: Rs 3,996
ISBN: 0072262656.
&nbsp;
&nbsp;
CONCEPT OF THE CORPORATION
Author: Peter F Drucker
Publisher: Transaction Pub
Price: Rs 1,397
ISBN: 1560006250.
&nbsp;
&nbsp;
GUERRILLA MARKETING FOR THE NEW MILLENNIUM
Author: Jay Conrad Levinson
Publisher: Lightning Source
Price: Rs 746.08
ISBN: 1933596074.
&nbsp;
&nbsp;
GROWING GREAT EMPLOYEES
Author: Erika Anderson
Publisher: Penguin
Price: Rs 796
ISBN: 1591841909.
&nbsp;
&nbsp;
HOW TOYOTA BECAME #1
Author: David Magee
Publisher: Penguin
Price: Rs 499
ISBN: 9781591842293.
&nbsp;
THE PARTNERSHIP: A HISTORY OF GOLDMAN SACHS
Author: Charles D Ellis
Publisher: Allen Lane
Price: Rs 995
ISBN: 9781846141027.
&nbsp;
&nbsp;
BUYOLOGY
Author: Martin Lindstorm
Publisher: Random House
Price: Rs 459
ISBN: 9781847940124.
&nbsp;
&nbsp;
BUSINESS STRIPPED BARE
Author: Richard Branson
Publisher: Virgin

The top 10 business bestsellers

Apparel occupies the largest chunk of the Indian consumer&rsquo;s share of wallet at 16 per cent.

KIT: Share of wallet

Wandering through the alleys of Old Bandra in Mumbai, Anand Sankar finds an exciting but novel reclamation underway.

Graffiti on my wall

We Indians have a sweet tooth &mdash; witness the myriad sweets (jalebi, gulab jamun, barfi, rasgulla) available at the neighbourhood mithaiwalla. Which is why it is somewhat surprising to see such low consumption and poor availability of sweet wines here.

Sweet talking

After a long and hard day at work &mdash; where half the time is spent thinking, &ldquo;when will this day end?&rdquo; &mdash; don&rsquo;t we all yearn for a long and relaxing massage? And what could be better than getting that massage without even stepping out of your home? Well, just fork out Rs 3-4 lakh and get yourself a chair that will do exactly that for you. In fact, the latest range of massage chairs will do even more for you.

Hands-free relief

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

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