Over the last decade or so, there has been a deluge of information that the consumer has been inundated with.

New informed consumer

Business Standard

It&rsquo;s close to a month now that Bigg Boss, the Indian adaptation of the popular international reality show Big Brother, is on air on Colors. The channel, which is charging a 25 per cent premium on last season&rsquo;s ad rates on the show, was expecting to improve its position (it is at number two now) in the Hindi general entertainment channels hierarchy.

Will Bigg Boss do the trick for Colors?

The German Bundesliga has been hit by a cheating scandal. In a league match between SC Eppingen and Katernberg, GM Falko Bindrich of Eppingen was disqualified for carrying a smartphone during his game against GM Sebastian Siebrecht.

Chess (#1021)

Foreigners coming to India for the first time get briefed on &ldquo;Indianisms&rdquo;: cultural traits that are distinctive to us Indians.

We are like that only

Earlier this week, when every reporter in the US was leaning into the wind in New York to yell into the camera about Sandy the Hurricane, a French friend put up a Facebook update about how oh yeah, Sandy the Hurricane had actually ripped through the Caribbean before it arrived at the hallowed shores of New York. At about the same time, a Canadian friend wrote an update about how Sandy the Hurricane was shortly going to cross the US border in Maine into Canada. Those reporters had almost nothing to say about Sandy&rsquo;s effect on Haiti or on Saskatchwan, though it&rsquo;s also true that Saskatchwan is a difficult name to yell into the camera.

Think perspective

Mensa, the world&rsquo;s largest and oldest high IQ society, has dedicated followers in India. Amrita Singh picks the brains of some of its members.

Mind gamers

Dengue, malaria, chikungunya - the deadly vector carries all these and more. Doctors say that the safest bet against them is the use of insecticide-treated mosquito nets and protective clothing. But there are numerous alternatives available in the market. However, before you pick your weapon of choice, here&rsquo;s a look at what might work best for you.

How to keep the mosquito away

On January 10, 2008, A Raja decided to hand out letters of intent for 2G licences to telecom companies on first-come-first-served basis - disregarding rules, precedents set by earlier decisions, and the advice of bureaucrats. Extracts from Bhupesh Bhandari&rsquo;s new book trace the sequence of events that led to the &ldquo;mother of all scams&rdquo;.

Notes from sanchar bhawan

KYLE PEREIRA drives a curious automobile on Mumbai roads &ndash; the limited edition Superdry Morgan 3 Wheeler.

Thrice as nice

I own a 10-year old Maruti 800 that I plan to trade in for a new car within a month. We are a family of four and have a monthly commute of 1,200 km, most of which is spent driving in the city. I am looking at cars keeping in mind their fuel efficiency and have considered the Maruti Suzuki Swift petrol, Maruti Suzuki Swift Dzire diesel, Toyota Etios Liva TRD Sportivo diesel and the Toyota Etios TRD Sportivo diesel.

Fuel duel

The son of a reverend, Henry Fredrick Stanley Morgan was the founder of the motor company bearing his surname back in 1905. What initially started off as a car garage and dealership later went on to become a full-fledged automobile manufacturer with the production of the first Morgan 3 Wheeler in 1910. This single-seater car was offered on sale with the choice of either a single-cylinder 4 HP or a V-twin 8 HP motorcycle motor, both of which were manufactured by the then leading motorcycle engine builder J A Prestwich. The concept was simple &mdash; lash a powerful motorcycle engine on to a lightweight chassis &mdash; and the resulting power-to-weight ratio was, as predicted, incredible for its time and brought in many motorsport accolades for the company.

Quick Gun Morgan

Improved power supply and road connectivity, better governance and more industries &mdash; Sukhbir Badal tells Bhupesh Bhandari all that he is doing to change the fortunes of the state.

Raising Punjab

In Bikaner, where Robert Vadra is said to have bought close to 800 acres between 2009 and 2011, locals say that his men offered land owners double the prevailing rate. What they did not know was that in a few months&rsquo; time, after the government had sanctioned some industrial projects in the area, the same land would be worth many times as much.

Friends in law

There is something about Sudini Jaipal Reddy. Even Arvind Kejriwal, who does not much like politicians, has vouched for his honesty and questioned Prime Minister Manmohan Singh&rsquo;s decision to move him out of the petroleum ministry just when he was making things difficult for Reliance Industries.

Became the fall guy

In 1832, a parliamentary Select Committee, of which Macaulay significantly had been a member, had concluded that not enough was being done to meet native Indian demand for the English language and its literature. [Governor General William] Bentinck had responded by appointing more Anglicists to the Committee of Public Instruction, chief among them Macaulay&rsquo;s brother-in-law, Charles Trevelyan.

Revolution in a minute

The fact that a well-known sports-writer has chosen to write a cookbook-memoir was, to me at least, unremarkable because of the provenance of the author. Boria Majumdar is Bengali and any paid-up Bengali takes an inordinate and fastidious interest in food.

Moveable feasts

If you're feeling weighed down by the gloom and doom in the economy this Diwali, don?t lose heart.

Affordable luxury

Akshaya Tritiya of 2010 brought a challenge for Future Group&rsquo;s Big Bazaar. Unlike the last few years when the retail chain was inducing purchase among its consumers in the south zone during the festival, now was the time to turn its eyes to other neglected zones like north and east.

Why good advertising works

The ads in national newspapers are hard to miss. Kolkata-based consumer-products-to-hotels giant ITC has left no stone unturned in pushing its estimated Rs 700-800-crore personal-care division. The past one year in particular has seen the company advertise its personal care products aggressively going for nothing but the front page of national dailies in its quest for visibility.

ITCs next frontier 

    The variety of a particular agricultural produce gets its name from the fact that its high yields supposedly allow growers to pay their debts. Name it and mention the region/country where it is grown.

Answers to last week's quiz (277)

Asia Pacific organisations are having difficulty in executing leadership development strategies as the infrastructure (processes, people, and technology), necessary to truly develop leaders, are not aligned, finds a survey.

Leadership in Asia Pacific

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