Ninety kilometres south-west of Chennai, in the Kanchipuram district of Tamil Nadu, is the small temple town of Uthiramerur. It is dusty, noisy and congested here. On what was once farmland stand several educational institutions. On what is left, farmers grow sugarcane and rice. A handful of small steel and cement factories can also be seen here, There is nothing noteworthy at Uthiramerur except for three famous temples: the Sundara Varadaraja Perumal Temple dedicated to Vishnu, Subramanya Temple (Murugan) and Kailasanatha Temple (Siva). About half a kilometre away is another temple called Vaikunta Perumal Koil. There are no idols here. The sanctum sanctorum is a rectangular assembly hall (mandapa) of over 2,500 square feet. The roof stands on the four stone walls and is not supported by any pillar in between. On top of the assembly hall is the vimana, the traditional turret of temples in this region.

Temple of democracy

Business Standard

Over the last ten years or so, a number of radical Muslim groups have asserted that enforcement of Sharia in an idyllic Islamic community is the objective of their agitation, which has included widespread murder and mayhem, including suicide bombings.

Sharia divine law profaned

It&rsquo;s almost 50 years since India and China fought a short war over their contesting boundary claims. The war of 1962 made the possibility of a boundary settlement all the more remote. India&rsquo;s ignominious defeat made a deep psychological dent on its political class, security establishment, and public opinion alike. The Chinese, for their part, worked to undermine India&rsquo;s security environment by supporting Pakistan and assorted insurgent groups in North-East India. Nearly a decade and a half passed before the two countries resumed the exchange of ambassadors. But a real thaw came only in 1988 with Rajiv Gandhi&rsquo;s visit to Beijing and his exchanges with Deng Xiaoping.

The deep freeze

In just one terrible week, my grandmother appeared to have collapsed. For some years her short-term memory had been fading, then the old memories started to go. We had been to a neurologist. He said &ldquo;Senile dementia,&rdquo; and prescribed medicines. They may have helped, but by this time it was hard to tell. Lately, and frighteningly fast, my grandmother&rsquo;s condition had nosedived.

Don't forget

Scientology is rumoured to be the cause of the much talked about split between Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes.

Religion or cult?

My Life My Style: Emmanuel Balayer

The last time the Indian hockey team came home with an Olympic medal was in Moscow in 1980. And then came the drought, which has lasted for over three decades. Now, with the London Games only a few weeks away, the question on everyone&rsquo;s minds is: will that drought end? Winning a gold medal won&rsquo;t be an easy feat; after all, India is grouped with defending champions Germany, the Netherlands, South Korea, New Zealand and Belgium in its pool at the Olympics. With the exception of Belgium, all teams are ranked higher than India (at number 10). The 12 teams in each tournament have been divided into two pools of six based on world rankings, and each team will play every other team in its pool. The top two teams in each pool will qualify for the semi-finals, with the winners of those matches going head-to-head for the gold medal.

S factor

Are you a digital native or an immigrant? Chances are that if you are of my generation, you are most likely a digital immigrant into the mysterious world they call cyberspace. It&rsquo;s our children who are digital natives, cyberspace their natural habitat and touchscreens their natural interface.

Digital tattoos

Queue up, left, if you believe you&rsquo;re the next Husain; right, if you&rsquo;re a born-again Souza clone; stay dead centre if you think you might have Raza&rsquo;s genes&hellip; Artists, alas, fall prey, too often, to hype and the market, losing sight of the original intent, which is to create art that is unique, admirable, significant &mdash; perhaps even provocative &mdash; but also aesthetic (without being decorative, which, ironically, could prove their kiss of death).

Mid-order Husain & Co

On the subject of computer analysis, Anand pointed out the need to classify positions into three broad categories. In the first category, the computers find the best moves quickly. But a good human player who has seen the analysis can reproduce it under tournament conditions.

Chess (#1008)

Until 10 years ago, a new play was a rare beast. One reason was the lack of outlets. Unlike a novelist, who sees his name on a book, a playwright needs the words to be spoken aloud. An unperformed play is not a play at all.

New India, New voices

Twenty years ago, a 25-year-old woman arrived in Mumbai with little money in her purse, a backpack on her shoulders and a pair of scissors in her pocket. A hairstylist from London, the epicentre of hairstyling, she had come to check out India and see what she could do with the Indian hair which was very different from the Caucasian hair she&rsquo;d largely been dealing with back home. But she didn&rsquo;t intend to stay on for more than a few months.

Scissor hands

US-based General Motors (GM), may have tipped Japanese auto major Toyota to become the largest-selling car maker globally last year, but it has been finding the going tough in India.

GM sets 'Sail' to beat India blues

The UK-based department store chain Debenhams is making a second attempt for a better fit in India. Its first foray in 2007-08 flopped as the chain wanted to be everything to everybody &ndash; a positioning that just didn&rsquo;t work in a crowded marketplace.

'She-change' for Debenhams

Here&rsquo;s how most of the two-wheeler advertising unfolds on television: a lot of shots of the vehicle from different angles, either zipping all over the place at breakneck speed (to show control/maneuverability), or cruising down open roads with not a soul in sight (to connote luxury or lifestyle or whatever).

Meet the new dream merchants

While announcing the launch of new MacBook line-up, Apple CEO Tim Cook said: &ldquo;Everyone is trying to copy it,&rdquo; referring to MacBook Air, the company&rsquo;s thinnest laptop. He added: &ldquo;They find it is not easy.&rdquo; While there are a large number of buyers out there who wouldn&rsquo;t think twice about paying up to a lakh of rupees for the top end Apple MacBook Pro, one of the sleekest laptops in the market.

Ultrabooks versus new MacBooks

Stress, hypertension, obesity and other lifestyle diseases have been dogging all of us. But with a little help from your mobile phone, you can now track how many calories you intake on a daily basis, your exercise routine, the miles you have run or cycled and much more.

Software for healthy living

Super-hero movies will never be the same again after Christopher Nolan took over the Batman franchise. Nolan&rsquo;s brooding but larger-than-life cinema has given Cadbury India (now a part of Krafts Foods) the perfect opening for a large scale campaign for its dark chocolate, Bournville. The last instalment in Nolan&rsquo;s Batman trilogy, titled The Dark Knight Rises (TDKR), produced by Warner Bros, will quench avid anticipation on the 20th of July. Cadbury Bournville has scripted an association with the movie to reach an audience who like their movies and chocolate dark.

Cadbury Bournville: Bournville rides with the Dark Knight

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Published by

The top 10 business bestsellers

Indian food and FMCG packing market has witnessed a growth of 15-20 per cent year on year, this is preliminary due to the factors like increasing nuclear family system, increasing youth population and spent, health awareness among society, product diversification and new product development and acceptance. The sector also aids in reducing waste, fetching better returns to farmers and also improves the end product delivery to the consumer.

KIT: Food packaging in India

    In the recently concluded Rio +20 Earth summit, more than 50 countries and 86 corporations, including Walmart and Unilever, signed a declaration supporting a measure of wealth that goes beyond GDP by including the value of natural assets such as soils, watersheds and fisheries.

The Strategist Quiz (#261)

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