It is a paradox that as the amount of information about any subject available online has grown, so has the need for people or agencies to filter this information &mdash; to channel the flood, as it were, so as to provide a stream of knowledge that is more comprehensible to the novice.

Wines and the Internet

Business Standard

I am looking for a replacement for my wife&rsquo;s Maruti Suzuki Zen Estilo. She has a monthly commute of 500 km. We were considering the Honda Jazz.

Little runabout

The sleek Sheaffer or Montblanc that Denstu Communications National Planning Head Suresh Mohankumar carries in his pocket isn&rsquo;t just a style statement. For him, a good pen that combines supreme workmanship and finesse is a necessity. Even while preparing a PowerPoint presentation, Mohankumar first jots his ideas down on a piece of paper with one of his choicest fountain pens.

Writer's prize

Three friends in Bangalore have embarked on an unusual quest for the best dosa in the city.

The dosa hunters

At the missile test range in Chandipur, where the Bay of Bengal laps the Orissa coast, the massive, 5-tonne, 9-metre-long Prithvi ballistic missile readied for a mission for which it had never been designed. Fitted with a special rocket motor, the Prithvi &mdash; which normally climbs 40 km to the edge of space on its journey to a ground target some 350 km away &mdash; would today rocket up 110 km, mimicking the flight path of a larger enemy ballistic missile with a range of 600 km. Hurtling back into the atmosphere and poised above its target, the Prithvi would be targeted by the Defence R&amp;D Organisation&rsquo;s (DRDO&rsquo;s) new Advanced Air Defence (AAD) interceptor. The hunter would become the hunted.

Star wars over India

To begin with the question that&rsquo;s top of mind &mdash; is Talaash worth a watch? Yes, undoubtedly. Does the film live up to the anticipation that Aamir Khan&rsquo;s seven-year good run at the BO (not counting 2010&rsquo;s Dhobhi Ghat) has given rise to? Umm&hellip;.more or less.

Murky trails

Shake your hips to the music!&rdquo; yells a young, lean instructor in a formidable tone. At his command, the 10-odd women, gathered in an inconspicuous basement, jump, shake their hips and bellies, twirl on their toes and even sway to Puerto Rican sensation Ricky Martin&rsquo;s flirtatious &ldquo;Shake your Bon-Bon&rdquo;. It is 8.30 in the morning and I&rsquo;m at the Delhi Dance Academy in Amar Colony, south Delhi, for my first Zumba workout.

Hips don't lie

So there was an international tango festival in Delhi last weekend. Yeah, who knew? Two sets of visiting teachers variously from the US, Australia and Mongolia, tango dancers from Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune, Auroville, London, New York and god knows where else. Who knew, right? We had four nights of social dances and three days of workshops for six hours each day. I wore dresses, which regular readers of this column know to be totally, unthinkably, fish-doing-surya namaskars-on-the-living-room-sofa-y whacko. Who the hell knew.

Third time's the charm

An Olympic medal, one might say, is about fame, recognition and glory. In a medal-starved country like ours, it&rsquo;s also about cash rewards. So when six of our players &mdash; Sushil Kumar, Saina Nehwal, Vijay Kumar, M C Mary Kom, Gagan Narang and Yogeshwar Dutt &mdash; returned with medals from London Olympics 2012, various federations and state governments came forward to shower cash rewards on them.

Whose medal is weightier?

The clock appears to be ticking fast for 39-year-old Sachin Tendulkar. With every dismal performance on the cricket field, the buzz about his retirement only gets louder, with the batting maestro seemingly in no position to halt the chorus of voices raging against him.

Game is not over yet for Sachin

If there is one thing becoming increasingly clear about android cameras, it is that they are going to be incredibly good looking devices. Close on the heels of the Nikon COOLPIX S800C, the first-ever Android-powered point-and-shoot that Business Standard reviewed early last month, the Samsung Galaxy Camera, also powered by the same platform, is, too, a great looker.

Capture the galaxy with this smart camera

Last week, many of those on Facebook would have seen status updates from their friends declaring their &lsquo;copyright&rsquo; over personal data on the social networking site. The semi-outrage on Facebook with users claiming right to &lsquo;own&rsquo; their content is entirely unnecessary. Fact is, Facebook is a corporation and it wants you to continue to use its services. In return, it owns your data.

Hoax content: Don't get swayed

In the days of the Raj, the British and the maharajas used to retreat from the hot and humid capitals of Calcutta, Delhi, Bombay, Bangalore, and Madras and head for the hills. They created a network of beautiful hill stations (highaltitude towns) famed for their cool air. Among them were Darjeeling and Simla in the foothills of the Himalayas, and Ooty in the Nilgiri Hills.

Riding the realty boom

The recently released book, The $10 Trillion Prize - Captivating the Newly Affluent in China and India, puts in perspective the Indian and Chinese consumer, their hopes and dreams.

The line between rural and urban consumers is beginning to blur: Michael J Silverstein & Abheek Singhi

When one has been in the advertising business for over two decades, identifying the &lsquo;best campaign&rsquo; can be a tough task. Not for me. I was fortunate to have worked on a campaign that was iconic in its time &mdash; one that truly defined the youth in India. The campaign was Pepsi&rsquo;s &lsquo;yeh dil maange more&rsquo; (YDMM), which continues being one of the most recalled brand taglines.

My Best Campaign: Rohit Ohri

The top 10 business bestsellers

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    Whose products also have a range of brands that go by the names Chant, Bag of Rhythm and Get up Stand up?
    &nbsp;
    This question is part of which company&rsquo;s interview process&mdash; &ldquo;If your flight got cancelled, and you were stuck in the airport for three hours with this guy or this girl, how happy would you be about that?&rdquo; What name is given to it:&nbsp;
    &nbsp;
    What is the term used for selling products that are custom created, typically with

The Strategist Quiz (#282)

    This product is the creation of a pastry maker. Introduced in the 1940s it was first called pasta______. An innovation that addressed the shortage of one of its key ingredients during WWII. Recently the government of a European country has approved a tax amendment that would quadruple the tax on a key ingredient in this product, to discourage consumption of it since it is rich in saturated fat. The tax amendment carries the brand name as its prefix. Fill in the blank and name the brand and the country where it is facing this tax related issue.

Answers to last week`s quiz (#281)

If automation is the future of business, digitisation of processes may be considered the first step in that direction. Proponents of this vision of tomorrow believe that minimising human interference provides the dual advantage of lower costs and higher efficiencies. An area where this belief finds proof is procurement, as increasingly companies across sectors experiment with electronic procurement (e-procurement) systems, moving away from the traditional ones.

Fast and secure

Consumers could be wasting their money on sports drinks, protein shakes and high-end trainers, according to a joint investigation by BBC Panorama and the British Medical Journal. The investigation into the performance-enhancing claims of some popular sports products found &ldquo;a striking lack of evidence&rdquo; to back them up.

Sports drinks may be fooling you!

From the look of it, the age of the internet is finally upon us in India albeit a full dozen years later than the evangelists would have liked to see it. Then, as they say, better late than never.

What ails online advertising

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

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