When Ratan Tata said in an interview earlier this week that the four-year-old Tata Motors-Fiat joint venture &ldquo;has not been as active as we had thought&rdquo;, he finally confirmed what the market has been quite vocal about for the past few months.

Why Tata is worried about Fiat in India

Business Standard

Chug a mug of coffee-flavoured beer or a hearty stout at one of the many brewpubs that have come up.

Freshly brewed

The Lalit&rsquo;s Francis Luzinier is inviting guests to join him at his Chef&rsquo;s Table in the hotel kitchen.

Quirky table

Mumbai had the Malvani restaurants, low-key places where astonishingly good food just about made up for the surly service. Calcutta has the no-nonsense prix fixe canteens in Gariahat, where the portions are sumptuous, the fish of the day is always fresh.

Guests of state

Gandhi and Hitler brings together two epochal figures who never met. Will it work.

Ahistorical film

Delhi Belly is young, edgy and irreverent, very unlike Aamir Khan&rsquo;s earlier productions.

A belly for risks

One of the many pleasing things about Hindi multi-starrers of the 1970s was the phenomenon of &ldquo;And Above All&rdquo; in the title credits.

Up above the world so high

With Wimbledon starting on Monday, A Seshan takes a look at what makes the tournament the biggest draw in international tennis.

Grass not just for cows

Why London? Is it a colonial hangover? Or because, despite her change in name and frequent attempts to deny her past, Kolkata still feels like a woman scorned? Shunned by her colonial masters after almost 300 years of being their prime abode for the sandstone skirts of the new capitol in Delhi.

Emotionally yours... Kolkata  

The big news of the week was Kirsan Ilyumzhinov playing a couple of games with his old pal, Col. Gaddafi. Kirsan was a Kremlin emissary - the US and France have requested Russia to act as a go-between. It led to a strange photo-op and some controversial publicity. Kirsan has personal ties with the Libyan leader, who hosted the 2004 KO World Championships. Incidentally, Kirsan also visited Saddam Hussain in 2003, weeks before the US invasion of Iraq.

Chess (#682)

For every tiger killed, six leopards are poached as their skins are in big demand in China.

Hounded down

Visitors to the Grand Palais in Paris can walk into a giant inflatable balloon, Anish Kapoor&rsquo;s latest and biggest creation.

Inside the Leviathan's belly

All this and brains too! Audi&rsquo;s segment-bender, the new A7, is a fine piece of kit.

Odd number

The rains are here and so are the inevitable flooded roads and sudden downpours.

Wet wet wet

Shishir Prashant, Aabhas Sharma, Praveen Bose and Indulekha Aravind lift the veil of secrecy over the businesses and assets of four of our most high-profile godmen.

Guru or seth?

I currently drive a petrol Maruti Zen and would like to upgrade to a diesel car, preferably a sedan. My budget is roughly Rs 7- 8.5 lakh and my priorities are fuel efficiency of 20 kpl, low maintenance costs and a good amount of interesting features thrown in. My monthly usage is a little over 1,000 km. Kindly suggest the right car for my requirements.

Excess mileage

Seafaring and the opium trade were shaping influences on India, Amitav Ghosh tells Rrishi Raote, but Indians are not interested in that history.

Opium trips

He brings to the table a ringside view of cricket; she, an extensive, hands-on experience of marketing. Harsha and Anita Bhogle play to each other&rsquo;s strengths.

Lessons from the crease

As soon as the obits for M F Husain started coming in, I knew that the cringe-making moment when we&rsquo;d have to read that he was &ldquo;India&rsquo;s Picasso&rdquo; would not be far behind.

What's in a name?

Writer, soldier and aesthete Patrick Leigh Fermor is dead.

High life

Conventional wisdom has it that the Indian middle class values price over almost any other attribute in its purchasing decisions and is relatively indifferent to environmental concerns. Ergo: the market for green brands and products is too small to consider. A recent global survey suggests that consumer goods marketers who continue to think this way are missing a big opportunity for growth.

Green signals from the middle class

- Find Specials News, Features, Analysis and more at Business Standard. Full coverage of Goafest 2014

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