Levon Aronyan and Vladimir Kramnik are playing an exhibition match at the Zurich chess club. Oddly, this is a record with two players rated above 2,800 in matchplay for the first time. Kramnik-Kasparov, Kramnik-Topalov, Anand-Kramnik and Anand-Topalov have all 2,800-plus players but never both at the time of a given match.

Chess (#998)

Business Standard

Elsewhere in this issue we have examined the more philosophical-ethical fallout of the Abhishek Manu Singhvi CD scandal.

Of Mrs Clinton, Mrs Woods and Mrs Singhvi

Like many low houses giving way to high rises, this one in Pali Hill in suburban Mumbai is under construction and is closed to visitors. Piles of debris surround it. The marble plaque says &ldquo;Anand, 42, Pali Hill&rdquo;. This was Anand Recording Studio, the brainchild of the legendary Dev Anand who died in London on December 4 last year. Under construction here is a 12-storey building which will perhaps house the iconic recording studio and the late actor&rsquo;s family in the penthouse.

Revamping a legacy

After more than a decade of false comparisons, the India and China likeness is starting to find some common ground. It&rsquo;s not in staggering feats of engineering, or economic growth but in something that is far deeper and hard to measure &mdash; corruption. Public examples of corruption in China are starting to grab as many headlines as the cases of graft in India. As these episodes unravel, it&rsquo;s clear that when it comes to hanky panky, the neighbours are competing hard, undermining both India&rsquo;s claim of superior rule-based growth and China&rsquo;s promise of untrammelled growth, driven by its central command.

Ape thy neighbour

When Miriam Chandy Menacherry visited the famous Karni Mata temple on a road trip to Rajasthan, the temple where rats are revered, she could not bring herself to step inside, that was how scared she was of rodents. But in the kind of twist fate loves, Menacherry ended up making a documentary on the rat killers of Mumbai, The Rat Race, which meant one-and-a-half years of shooting among rats, both dead and living.

With a torch and a lathi

On March 3, a 21-year-old man landed in the trauma centre of Delhi&rsquo;s All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS). His leg had been crushed &mdash; apart from the gaping wound there were multiple fractures in his right thighbone and kneecap. From the uniform he wore, it was evident that the victim was a pizza delivery boy. Doctors struggled to salvage the damaged limb. For them, this was a familiar story.

Risk factor

Recently, 4.2 million shares of Escorts (it makes tractors and other farm equipment, construction equipment, automobile components and railway equipment) were purchased by a company called Har Parshad &amp; Co from Reliance Asset Management for Rs 32 crore. The acquirer was a private company of the Nanda family that runs Escorts. The purchase raised the family&rsquo;s stake in the company from 27.67 per cent to 31.67 per cent.

Yesterday once more?

The Mercedes-Benz CLS&rsquo;s younger sibling, the CSC.

Showboating

New car unveilings aren&rsquo;t the only happening thing at the Beijing Auto Show, there are significant powertrain announcements too. Ferrari unveiled their new hybrid powertrain system called the HY-KERS (where KERS stands for Kinetic Energy Recovery System). This is the engine for their next hypercar, the next Enzo from Ferrari.

Ferrari HY-KERS

Polar explorer Robert Swan tells Priyanka Sharma about the perils of his journey to the two poles.

'Get fit and fat'

Ginger Hotels, the budget hotel brand of the Tata group, has had a solo run since its launch in 2004 &mdash; unchallenged by any international or domestic organised sector player.

New players seek to ginger up budget hotel market

Jonathan Mildenhall is vice-president, global advertising strategy and creative excellence, at the Coca-Cola Company. He has worked with ad agencies such as Bartle Bogle Hegarty, McCann-Erickson and TBWA before joining Coke and in this role, oversees marketing communications, idea development and content production. He talks to Viveat Susan Pinto on the challenges of marketing in a country where Coke is not the leader.

My job's to build confidence in teams to come up with ideas not tried before: Jonathan Mildenhall

Developing a deep bench is a human resource issue, not restricted to the top management, but spanning an organisation&rsquo;s hierarchy. In most global organisations, leadership development initiatives are considered an integral part of the corporate strategy. Are Indian corporations using global best practices to plan succession? Does India Inc.

The leadership pipeline

Parting shots are a symptom of social and institutional stress.

Parting shots: The hostile exit letter as an art form

Aslightly vexing aphorism recommends, &lsquo;If life deals you lemons, make lemonade.&rsquo; How can we make lemonade out of Akerlofs lemons? To return to Akerlofs original example of the market for second-hand cars, both buyers and sellers have an incentive to try to fix the problem: sellers want to get a decent price for their peaches, and buyers want to buy peaches. If inside information is wrecking the chance of a mutually beneficial deal, both sides will want to find a way to bridge the information gap.

Making lemonade

Two years after the Indian Railways decided to take its core catering business away from the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), the public sector undertaking has refocused its business and made a life for itself away from the unit which is now the world&rsquo;s fourth largest commercial or utility employer.

Some people will always be disappointed whatever our bandwidth: Rakesh Kumar Tandon

Starting as a quintessential Polo-wear brand for men and expanding its portfolio over the years, Lacoste India has shifted its focus on women&rsquo;s collection this year. This came as a part of the brand&rsquo;s global repositioning strategy. With Portuguese fashion designer Felipe Oliveira Baptista as the new international creative director of the brand, the women&rsquo;s category for Lacoste will be its global calling card.

Lacoste: Women to the rescue

Hyundai Motor India has expanded the portfolio of its high-end compact car, the i20, which made its debut at the Paris Motor Show in 2008. The new i-Gen i20 (priced at Rs 4.73-Rs 7.67 lakh) is available in 12 variants now &mdash; seven petrol and five of diesel &mdash; and will compete in the Indian market with the likes of Skoda Fabia Diesel, Fiat Punto, Volkswagen Polo, Nissan Micra, Renault Pulse and Maruti Swift Diesel.

i-Gen i20: On the fast lane

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The top 10 business bestsellers

The Indian food and FMCG packaging market has witnessed a growth of 15-20 per cent annually. More than 80 per cent of the total packaging in India constitutes rigid packaging. The remaining 20 per cent comprises flexible packaging.

KIT: Food Packaging in India

    The payment industry is witnessing a new revolution where mobile readers that plug into a cell phone&rsquo;s head set jack are replacing traditional Electronic Data Capture (EDC) machines and the manual card imprinters.

Answers to last week's The Strategist Quiz (#250)

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