Nearly three years after LTTE lost the war, T E Narasimhan visits north Sri Lanka to find a country limping back to normal.

Once tiger territory

Business Standard

With the Hiranandani family feud out in the open, K Raghavendra Kamath gives details of the tussle between Priya Hiranandani-Vandrevala and her father, group patriarch Niranjan, and brother Darshan.

Her father's daughter

Right, say hello to the new Swift Dzire! It is based on, obviously, the new Swift. It is only predictable that you would think it is a Swift with a boot on it, which it is, but there&rsquo;s a catch. Maruti Suzuki, this time round has positioned the Dzire in the sub-4 metre segment. Big words, ironically, in the Indian scheme of things. Why is it so brilliant? We&rsquo;ll tell you just that in the rest of this story.

Dzire Straits

Despite a full-time day job as a member of the Indian Foreign Services Pavan K Varma found the time to pen 16 works of non-fiction, spanning a variety of subjects from Ghalib to Krishna to the &ldquo;Great Indian Middle Class&rdquo;. He has now entered the realm of fiction with his debut novel When Loss Is Gain. &ldquo;I wrote it because I had a powerful story with me, which kept growing and evolving. It&rsquo;s just that a hectic schedule and one non-fiction project after another kept the writing of it at bay,&rdquo; says Varma, a few hours before its launch in Bangalore. Being a veteran writer, he displays not the slightest trace of pre-launch nervousness or diffidence.

Powerful storyteller

I am planning to buy a new car. I have shortlisted the Hyundai i20, Maruti Suzuki Swift, Volkswagen Polo, Nissan Micra and Toyota Etios Liva.I am going in for a petrol variant as my daily travel will be around 16 km. Moreover, long trips are rare. My priority is fuel efficiency. I can&rsquo;t compromise on that since petrol prices are always increasing. I am very much satisfied with the i20 because of its style, comfort and ride quality.

Fuel conscious

We have become a jamboree nation, a compendium of carnivals, Planet Festival.

Jamboree nation

Steam engines went out of use 20 years ago. But now Northern Railway is trying to revive them for heritage tourism. Aabhas Sharma visits the Rewari Locomotive Shed where steam engines are being restored and describes the labour of love that is putting them back on track.

Picking up Steam

This elegant and compelling biography of Karachi after Partition may have overdone the violent face of a vibrant city.

Resilient city

Aabhas Sharma identifies the weak spots in his captaincy in Test matches outside India.

What's eating MSD?

There is a word in Great Andamanese, raupuch, that means &ldquo;one who loses his sibling&rdquo;. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think any other language &mdash; English, Hindi &mdash; has a word for this relationship,&rdquo; says linguistics professor Anvita Abbi. When she told her Great Andamanese informants this fact, they were perplexed.

Saving a world

Debaleena Sengupta spends a Sunday morning at Kolkata&rsquo;s auction houses, and comes away saddened at the sorry state of the once grand institutions.

Hammers down

Priyanka Sharma takes lessons in glass cutting from the artist Hemi Bawa.

Cast in glass

Subodh Gupta has contributed a great deal to the economy of steel utensil manufacturers in the country, buying several dowries worth of kitchen vessels for his art projects. Bronze sculptures that require foundries for casting are still the norm for sculptors like K S Radhakrishnan &mdash; who works out of Santiniketan, Goa and Jaipur on his projects.

Morals and materials

While most of us would shrug off the Mayan prophecy that the world will end in 2012, which brings with it evocative images of everything from tsunamis to alien invasions, as drivel, what if it actually comes true? Not literally, of course, with Mumbai becoming Godzilla fodder and falling into the sea or New Delhi dissipating in an asteroid collision. But metaphorically, in the way we see our cities and its building blocks.

The middle way city

Coke Studio in India has not been the success it was in Pakistan, at least in its first season. Veenu Sandhu speaks to musicians to find out why.

A hollow sound

The Tata Steel at Wijk An Zee (WAZ) is a spectacular event. Group A is a super tournament, Group B is very strong and C has an interesting mix of youngsters. WAZ has always been run on traditional lines. No Sofia Rules, no Bilbao scoring. Just a careful mix of hungry youngsters and decent conditions to encourage fighting chess. After four rounds, the lead is tied in Group A. World no:1 Carlsen has 3 points and so does world no:2 Levon Aronyan.

CHESS (#987)

Baz Lurhmann tells Michael Cieply why he chose to release The Great Gatsby in 3-D.

Another dimension

Jeremy Clarkson has done it again. The Top Gear presenter has apparently offended Indians now. The Mexicans, Romanians, UK&rsquo;s striking public servants and Americans have all chafed and been singed before we did. Clarkson as always will save his scalp, as humourists ought to. India, on the other hand, may have just admitted to the world that it&rsquo;s losing its ability to step back and laugh at the absurd.

Anything for a laugh

    An engineer from Siemens India was challenged by his wife to repair an imported electrical appliance manufactured by Braun of Germany. Instead of doing so he designed a new one and founded his own brand. Name the person and the brand.

The Strategist Quiz (#237)

    No Free Hunch is the official Kaggle blog. Kaggle is an innovative solution company for statistical/analytics outsourcing, that harnesses the power of crowd sourcing.

Answers to last week's quiz (#236)

Most experts say women are under-represented in corner offices across the world. How well does India score? Our panel of experts, who are stereotype-busters in their own right, share their experiences.

Is the glass ceiling a myth or a reality?

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