The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India&rsquo;s (TRAI) proposal last week to halve ad duration on pay television channels has stirred up a hornet&rsquo;s nest in the media industry.

Ad brake for pay TV channels

Business Standard

Korean major Samsung, the second largest AC player in the country, has decided to stop production of window air conditioners. Mahesh Krishnan, vice president, home appliances of the company, says it does not make any sense to continue with window ACs as the price gap with split ACs has narrowed considerably. Samsung has seen split ACs accounting for 85 per cent of its total AC sales in the current financial year. That number will become 100 per cent next year.

Window ACs feel the heat

They may be the new kids on the block, but Punit Agarwal and Ashish Garg, the current owners of discount chain Promart, say they have learnt lessons from the failures of such deep discounters in the past.

The makeover of Promart 

Low-cost airline IndiGo has taken a dig at competition in a new advertisement that hints that other domestic airlines fudge their on-time performance records.

Indigo flaunts on-time performance muscle

The headman&rsquo;s house towers three-storeys, plus a turret. Freshly painted in pink and white, it is impossible to miss. Of course, most houses in Badalpur look big to the city-dweller, even if the ground floor is a courtyard with two buffaloes and a Maruti car. Above the pradhan&rsquo;s house no party flag flies, but the Toyota with tinted windows and rooftop light makes its own statement &mdash; as does the crowd of supplicants at the office near the gate.

Under the elephant's spell

His achievements on the cricket field, his records and statistics are a matter of public record.

The other side of Sachin

Sachin Tendulkar made his 100th ton and the nation rejoiced. Palpable relief mixed with heady pride made for a milestone in the history of cricket.

Land of marks

The European Championships at Plovdiv sees the European Chess Union's new dress code applied for the first time. This is drafted by some very powerful minds, who have paid great attention to detail. It includes specific injunctions, apart from requesting a &ldquo;pulled together, harmonious look&rdquo;. For example, &ldquo;clothes must show no excessive wear, no holes, and be free of body odour&rdquo;. Also &ldquo;only the top and second from the top button of shirts /blouses may be open&rdquo;. Jewellery, handbags and jackets must be &ldquo;coordinated and crisp&rdquo;.

Chess (#994)

Indulekha Aravind spends three days in Koodankulam and nearby villages early this week and sees firsthand how the area has become a battleground between the government pushing nuclear power and the people who fear its impact.

Power to the people

It is March 12, the opening day of the budget session of Parliament, and President Pratibha Patil has just addressed a joint session. Television crews are on the lookout for Rahul Gandhi. But the man who was all over TV till 10 days ago is nowhere to be seen. It soon becomes clear that Gandhi hasn&rsquo;t turned up. The next day, he skips the dinner hosted by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for UPA allies. But he shows up on March 16 for Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee&rsquo;s budget speech.

Prince un-charming?

Enough high-minded comment has been passed on the Salman Rushdie-Imran Khan slugfest, sparked off by Rushdie&rsquo;s speech at the India Today Conclave.

The testosterone conclave

Within hours of his death, the Apple Inc co-founder Steve Jobs was mourned even more emphatically than Michael Jackson, John Lennon and Martin Luther King. Flowers, candles and deckloads of messages were to be seen at every Apple store across the world turning each one into a shrine. The social media websites were unable to handle such a huge torrent of grief.

Stevie wonder

Inside Apple is actually a look at Apple by an outsider, in more ways than one. Although Adam Lashinsky confesses to having had no formal access to anyone at Apple, what he does not own up to but becomes brutally evident as one starts reading is that he is an outsider to both management theory and Silicon Valley. He uses ossified ideas of business to read what&rsquo;s essentially the new creative culture industry. Nowhere does he even get close to discussing the value-creating core of Apple. He is much too fascinated with the surface of the company, the organisational chart, personality and charisma of the leader, form factors, branding and public relations. It&rsquo;s a book that gets nowhere near the ideology of Apple, and the meaning it holds for its millions of devotees. So, in plainspeak, it &ldquo;describes&rdquo; Apple but doesn&rsquo;t &ldquo;deconstruct&rdquo; it. There is, I am afraid, all this talk of Religion, but no Revelation.

Inside out

A Finnish-Pakistani-British New York-based writer-barrister on the Islamic law code, its historical underpinnings and heterodox reality, and its promise of a perfect social order.

Out now

More than 70 years after it was plundered by the Nazis, a missing painting by Monet that depicts the shimmering blue rapids of the Creuse river has pitted two of the wealthiest and most prominent families in France against each other.

Mystery of the missing monet

In story after sensitively-penned story, Lahiri has written about the difficulties faced by Indian immigrants when they leave their country and attempt to make lives and careers abroad. From her very first collection, Interpreter of Maladies, which won her the Pulitzer, Lahiri has made the peculiar condition of the NRI her main focus. Her portrayal of the cultural and emotional challenges faced by first and second generation immigrants has won her much acclaim and many readers.

A lament for NRI wives

In what is being widely reported as rollback season, indications from the critical March auctions are pointing to a disenchantment with the modern masters &mdash; either that, or like Mamata Banerjee, the aam aadmi wants better rationalisation of prices.

One step forward, two steps back

The chasm between the product and the promise &mdash; delivered by someone no less than a hyperstar &mdash; was too wide to be bridged. Sometimes, even Maruti Suzuki gets it wrong. It&rsquo;s another thing that today, that same car in the guise of the profitable Eeco, notches between 5,000 and 6,000 units a month.

Folks wagon

He wanted to be an actor but realised he was not very good at it and turned to direction instead.

Rebel with a cause

Yeh kaisa kanoon hai, ki first class mein keval angrez hi chadenge? (What sort of law permits only Englishmen to travel in the first-class coach?),&rdquo; asks actor Rajit Kapoor in a piercing tone. The background score &mdash; winds blowing along with the chugging sounds of a train &mdash; adds to the drama in the scene.

Return of the drama

Among the joys of being a movie buff in the Internet age (and I speak with the hoary wisdom of one who remembers an earlier time) is the opportunity to have limitless public discussions about a stimulating film. You can examine the nuts and bolts of a movie, supply diverse readings of a scene, get technical, argue about seemingly inconsequential details, stupefy people by making obscure references.

Plot holes & tale twisters

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