Luxury cars are not merely for the rich and famous any more. In an attempt to draw in newer buyers into its brand, Mercedes Benz broke another price barrier on Tuesday driving in its B180 Sports Tourer tagged upwards of Rs 21.49 lakh (ex-showroom, Mumbai). The car is the cheapest offering Benz has in its portfolio and priced significantly lower than the entry-level C Class sedan which starts off at Rs 31 lakh. And the results are already visible.

Merc goes down the pyramid

Business Standard

It missed the action in smartphones and tablets, but Intel has finally woken up to the changing reality in the marketplace. Its vehicle to get back its space in the computing world, specially emerging markets, is the Ultrabook.

Intel's biggest bet

 Divisional Commissioner (Meerut) today began probe into the Ghaziabad violence, in which six persons were killed on September 14.

Probe begins into Ghaziabad violence

PTI Automatic

 "Look at the great tragedy, we have rejected the world's best poetry," this was Press Council Chairperson Justice Markandey Katju's remarks on the present state of Urdu poetry in the country.

We have rejected Urdu poetry, Katju laments

 Hollywood star Tom Cruise hasn't been seen with his daughter Suri for 48 days.

Tom Cruise not spending enough time with Suri?

Indians love to show their affection towards their favourite brands on social networking sites. In fact, when it comes to engaging fans on social networking sites such as Facebook, Indian brands have done better than their global peers &ndash; in terms of growth rate and in some cases, even in the absolute number of fans.

Indian brands score more on Facebook than global peers

Utility vehicle manufacturer Mahindra &amp; Mahindra has done it once again: it has sought to create a new segment by launching the Quanto, the world&rsquo;s most compact seven-seater at a sedan-beating entry price of Rs 5.82 lakh (ex-showroom, Thane).

M&M's new price warrior

 The Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) has upheld a Union Home Ministry's order to transfer a police officer, two years before his retirement, to Lakshadweep to tackle the Somalian pirate problem there.

Cops transfer to Lakshdweep 2 yrs before retirement upheld

The sixth and last women&rsquo;s Grand Prix for 2012 is on at Ankara. Each GP has a fund of Euro 40,000 with first place worth Euro 6,500. Each invitee plays four GPs and the best three results are counted with 160 points for first, 130 for second, 110 for third, and so on, and points averaged if places are shared.

Chess (#1019)

I would like to purchase a diesel car that will give me good mileage, has low maintenance costs and comes with an automatic transmission. My budget is between Rs 11 and Rs 17 lakh. I&rsquo;m not very particular about any other aspects.

Sticky sedan

General Motors-owned Oldsmobile&rsquo;s Jetfire Sport Coup&eacute;, launched in April 1962, was the world&rsquo;s first ever turbo-petrol production car. It came with a Garrett T5 turbocharger mated to a 3.5-litre V8 engine that produced 215 hp and 41.4 kgm of torque. Unfortunately, the turbocharger unit did not prove to be very reliable and most owners eventually binned it.

Turbo landmarks

On a cool November day last year, Commerce Minister Anand Sharma got the news that West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee would be available in Delhi&rsquo;s Pragati Maidan, where the annual trade fair was going on.

The knight in veshti

Nothing riles the boss more than bad press. And in the last six months, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has drawn more than his share of flak from the world media. In April, The Economist had called Singh a &ldquo;lame duck&rdquo; whose &ldquo;energy and authority&rdquo; were on the decline.

The spin doctors

It is a scam that has powerful people on the run, and senior bureaucrats under investigation. An official estimate of the scale of the illegal quarrying of granite and its export from Madurai is yet to emerge, though figures of Rs 16,000 crore and Rs 35,000 crore are doing the rounds. The man responsible for unearthing the scam, which has reportedly been going on for years, is Ubagarampillai Sagayam, the former district collector of Madurai.

Exposed the granite scam

The time has come to add another bookcase to the walls at home. I really thought it would take longer. Less than two years since the last set of new bookcases, and the shelves are full. A pile of books half obscures the computer. To turn on the radio, first I must displace two stacks. Meanwhile, my father is threatening to ship me all his books.

Booked for a lifetime

A study published in 2003 in Annals of Oncology that states that &ldquo;a single glass of wine every day for a year could trigger breast cancer and other tumours&rdquo; has hit the headlines recently.

Let's drink to that!

At Vogue India&rsquo;s fifth anniversary celebration at The Trident in Mumbai tonight, all eyes will be on the six finalists of India&rsquo;s Vogue Fashion Fund, announced by the magazine in collaboration with retailer Westside and the Fashion and Design Council of India in April this year.

They made the cut 

A full house watched the premiere of Midnight&rsquo;s Children at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this month, applauded at the end and went home, some surely more pleased with the film than others. That, apparently, is too much to ask for in today&rsquo;s India, where, reports indicate, various groups could effectively exercise a mob veto over the film version of Salman Rushdie&rsquo;s Booker of Bookers-prize winning novel. Got a problem with director Deepa Mehta&rsquo;s work? Shut it down. Don&rsquo;t care for Rushdie either? Join the gang.

Memories of Midnight 

Great artists do not die, their fame and market value only go up. So it has been with Raja Deen Dayal, the 19th-century photographer who pioneered the medium in India and left an exquisite visual record of his times, especially the pomp and splendour of Indian princes, their magnificent attire and jewels, grand palaces and lavish life-styles. To be sure, Deen Dayal&rsquo;s reputation was made in his lifetime, with royal warrants from the Nizam of Hyderabad and Queen Victoria.

Master prints

I love US presidential elections, those media-drunk carnivals of image manipulation.

Democrips and Rebloodicans

Two-time Olympic medallist Sushil Kumar&rsquo;s fitness mantra is simple: &ldquo;Every day there should be an improvement.&rdquo; The old adage, &ldquo;easier said than done&rdquo;, has perhaps never been more apt.

Stand tall like Sushil Kumar

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