This isn&rsquo;t a hypothetical question. A proposal to organically clean-up and transform the city&rsquo;s 350 km of storm water drains &mdash; or nullahs &mdash; into a network of arterial water routes and landscaped passages for Delhi&rsquo;s pedestrians and cyclists has been floating around since 2007, when it was first created by architecture and design company Morphogenesis.

A city without a CEO

Business Standard

The Biel Classic was expected to be tight. It pits six top players in a double-round robin under Bilbao (soccer scoring) rules with no draw offers before move 30. In the event, it turned out to be even tighter than expectations.

Chess (#1012)

Ashish got thrown out of the interview when he was shown a Vernier calliper and he called it a screw gauge. A mid-sized company had come to his engineering college in Bhopal to recruit fresh graduates. But the interview began on a bad note. Realisation soon dawned on Ashish that his four years in the college and the lakhs his family had spent on his education had been a total waste.

Nuts and bolts

The room at the Grand Hyatt in Andheri, where Sunny Leone has agreed to give interviews ahead of the release of her first Bollywood film, Jism 2, is packed with journalists &mdash; about 30, more men than women, have turned up to talk to her and, more important, get darshan of her.

For your eyes only

The sprinter who would dethrone Usain Bolt, his Jamaican training partner known as the Beast, sits before a crowded room of reporters, wearing a T-shirt that says &ldquo;Eat My Dust&rdquo;.

Beast vs Bolt

Is the narrative for female sexuality being driven by women for the first time? Popular culture seems to suggest so.

Not a subject worth dwelling on

The 19th century was a difficult period for artists in India as the arrival of European painters and, in 1840, that of photography, meant the demise of their ateliers. Instances followed of the painter taking up the camera to turn photographer, though, mostly, &ldquo;the painter embellished the photographic image by retouching the sepia tones with colour, thus anticipating colour photography nearly a century before it came into existence&rdquo;, writes Pramod Kumar in the introduction to his delectable volume on royal Indian portraits &mdash; the first serious study in India of portrait photography. &ldquo;It is almost as if in its first 150 years, photography was trying to substitute paintings at court,&rdquo; he acknowledges.

Beyond mask and ceremony

It&rsquo;s the season for jubilees. Especially for royal anniversaries, whether the royal in question is the sovereign of the realm or a rajah of the senses. Before Britain can recover from the extravagance of Elizabeth II&rsquo;s diamond jubilee, arrives another golden jubilee, no less royal, no less majestic.

Stoned at 50

Some incredible designs by travelling hippie craftsmen in Goa.

My Life My Style: King Jassim

Sheela and Bharat Goenka, an affluent couple with interests in the software business, had their 25th wedding anniversary coming up. Celebrations were in order and the busy couple needed someone to get things done in little time.

'It shall be done'

They say markets are not created, but identified, and the Premier Rio seems like it intends to live up to that formula.

Change of heart

The 1248cc, in-line four-cylinder Multijet engine is Fiat&rsquo;s brainchild. Ironically, it was first introduced in India in the Maruti Suzuki Swift back in 2007, and the Multijet&rsquo;s balanced combination of power and efficiency was an instant hit, a fact endorsed by the number of vehicles that employ this engine &mdash; nearly a dozen! Fiat uses this engine in the Punto and the Linea. The Multijet engine is available in two power ratings on the Punto and the Linea &ndash; 75 and 91.7 bhp (the latter is called the &lsquo;Advanced Multijet&rsquo;). It&rsquo;s the latter powerplant that&rsquo;s livelier to drive, although Fiat&rsquo;s popular engine somehow performs better in cars outside of the brand.

Jet fuel!

Fresh off Satyamev Jayate, Aamir Khan and spouse Kiran Rao put some of that money to use as auction debutants with a cautious bid for six lots of Bollywood memorabilia &mdash; most famously, a jacket worn by Shammi Kapoor.

Objects of desire

I am 6&rsquo; 2&quot; and come from a family where everyone is rather tall and broad. Our daily commute is 70 km within Mumbai city, with a once a month trip to Nashik. I have a bad back and am looking for an automatic car that is fuel efficient as well. My current car &mdash; a Tata Indica Vista diesel &mdash; has kept me happy so far due to its excellent cabin space.

Back me up

It is the Olympic season again. Anyone living in the host country, Britain, though, could be forgiven for thinking that the UK is leading the medal tally, just as China did, when it hosted the games four years ago. Newspaper headlines have ranged from &ldquo;Britain&rsquo;s Gold Rush&rdquo; to &ldquo;GOOOOOOLD&rdquo; to &ldquo;Britain&rsquo;s Golden Day&rdquo;. Television stations have worn down audiences by focusing mostly on UK athletes who won medals, or bettered their own record. Starkly skewed as it may be, Britain isn&rsquo;t alone in taking sides. The games have thrown into sharp contrast the spirit of the event versus jingoist media coverage that&rsquo;s getting sports lovers worked up. It&rsquo;s been down to the social media and Web world to set the tone right.

The Games they play

Having made it to the morning show of Shuttlecock Boys through Delhi&rsquo;s rush hour traffic, made worse by the rain, the question that came to mind was, &ldquo;Would it be worth it?&rdquo; The low-budget, 76-minute movie had an unheard of cast, was made by an unheard of director and the storyline was far from extraordinary.

Chasing a dream

If you&rsquo;re visiting London, you will find a strange emblem decorating various lamp posts, subway stations and prominent eateries in the city. It is a set of jagged lines in a series of shades of pink, blue, green and orange. Upon closer inspection, you notice the date &lsquo;2012&rsquo; etched into it. This is London 2012, the logo of the London Olympics and Paralympic Games, designed by branding agency Wolff Olins.

The making of London 2012

These are perhaps the most challenging times for the media businesses. Advertising revenues are under stress and technology is changing faster than ever, bringing about major shifts in the way people consume media. Add to that the rapidly mounting competitive pressures and you have a terrain that looks less like business and more like a free for all. While it&rsquo;s easy to get caught up in the hype around the emerging platforms, it&rsquo;s harder to work out how to drive value from new digital media. In this interview to Alokananda Chakraborty, Ashish Bhasin, chairman, India, and chief executive officer, South East Asia, Aegis Media India Group, talks about the new challenges before the media agencies and explains how the industry can run the rapid safety.

The clients don't want the hassle of dealing with silos- they want solutions: Ashish Bhasin

Categories that deal with safety products have the same complaint &mdash; that the audience just does not want to be reminded of any imminent danger, let alone take measures to counter them. Ask insurance marketers, for example. Godrej Security Solutions (GSS) which has come a long way from selling iron safes and locks, is trying to work around this head-in-the-sand syndrome with a new campaign for its range of CCTV cameras, video door locks and safes.

Godrej Security Solutions: Fear no more

MTR Foods, a wholly owned subsidiary of Norwegian food company Orkla Brands, and one of the top five processed foods manufacturers in India, is expanding its portfolio by foraying into ready-to-cook (RTC) range. It has announced the launch of the Rasoi Magic brand of meal mixes, which had a limited presence in the markets of the west till now, on a national scale.

MTR Foods: Ready to roll

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The Essential Drucker by Drucker Peter

The top 10 business bestsellers

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