How marriages work and why they fail… Marriage is an adventure, says Shobhaa Dé, celebrity writer, devoted wife and mother of six. It’s about trust, companionship, affection and sharing. It’s also about learning to cope with your partner’s moods and eccentricities. Not to mention the delicate balancing act between parents, children, friends and a career, and the sometimes overpowering need to get away from it all. In this delightful book on society’s most debated institution, Shobhaa Dé writes about how and why marriages work, or don’t. With her usual disregard for rules, she reinvents tradition and challenges old stereotypes, addressing all the issues that are central to most Indian marriages: the saas-bahu conundrum (how to escape the role-trap and enjoy each other), the need for honesty (aren’t some secrets better left secret?), the importance of romance (no, expressions of love are not unmanly!), and not any less important, how to recognize the warning signs in a hopeless relationship and run before it’s too late. Fun, savvy and, above all, pragmatic, this is the ultimate relationship book for all those who want to make the adventure of marriage last a lifetime.
Archives: Books
The Best Quizzes Of Derek O’Brien
1500 top-drawer questions from Asia’s best-known quizmaster
Derek O’Brien is identified with top-class quizzing in India, for schoolchildren, professionals and quiz aficionados alike. From his vast range of questions that range from the informative and educational to curious facts and trivia, he has culled 1500 of his favorites, divided into seventy-five sets, for this very special book.
The questions range from subjects as diverse as the Boston Tea Party, the Chinese New Year, Cleopatra and C.V. Raman to the Grammy Awards, Gujarat, Vasco da Gama and the Wright brothers. There are whole sets of questions also on famous personalities like Arundhati Roy, Asha Bhonsle, Charles Lindbergh, George Harrison, Isaac Newton, Martin Luther King Jr., Pablo Picasso and Winnie the Pooh. Each set contains twenty questions that will test both the depth and breadth of the readers’ knowledge on the subject.
Among the questions readers will find answers to in this book are:
• By what name is Agra mentioned in the Mahabharata?
• Who is the author of a famous article titled ‘The Great Indian Rape Trick’?
•Which famous classical musician ran away from home after being denied a second serving of ghee?
• Who coined the term ‘information superhighway’?
•Which Indian prime minister accepted a spinning wheel as dowry?
• What did Phoolan Devi say she wanted to be reborn as?
• Which city did Jawaharlal Nehru describe as the ‘Oxford and Cambridge of India’?
•What was Queen Victoria’s first name?
Whether you are a school student, a college-goer, a teacher, a young professional, an ardent quizzer, a casual reader, or just someone who enjoys watching quiz programmes on television, this is a book that is sure to keep you engaged and entertained for days.
The Ultimate India Quiz Book
The perfect blend of entertainment and education . . . Commemorating sixty years of India’s independence and reflecting India’s many facets, this definitive volume packs in 3000 questions in sixty chapters, testing the answering skills of any quiz-lover. Each chapter contains fifty questions on a range of subjects from ancient, medieval and modern India to alternative medicine, and fairs and festivals, Indian cricket, Indian diaspora, Hindi and regional films to science, traditional sport and youth affairs, travel, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Put your knowledge of India to the ultimate test with this valuable volume for facts, figures, events, history, literature, politics, and much more.
We Are Like That Only
Taking cues from economics, demography, history, culture, philosophy and good old common sense, Rama Bijapurkar makes sense of the complex and inscrutable Indian market-the many consumer Indias, their diverse and schizophrenic behaviour and the way to make your company’s fortune in this billion-plus market. Irreverent and insightful, this book answers the questions to twelve key facets of consumer India. Bijapurkar explains why the Indian consumer market is ‘like that only’, why it will not change in a hurry, and what it takes to develop a winning ‘made for India’ business strategy. C.K. Prahalad, author of The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, writes in the foreword to the book: ‘Rama has developed a very strong case for learning about India on its own terms before investing. This book is a critical read for anyone considering building a large presence for themselves in India.’
A View from the Outside
‘Economics is the science of the possible made to look like the art of the impossible’ is a definition that would strike a chord with any finance minister of India who, every year, has to perform the great Indian hope trick. Otherwise known as the Budget-a careful balancing act between revenue and expenditure, tax rates and tax sops, growth and equity, reforms and the status quo. Within these constraints, however, there is much that a finance minister can actually accomplish, as P. Chidambaram, one of India’s most accomplished economists and commentators, shows in A View from the Outside, a collection of columns that assesses the promises and performance of the NDA government in the period 2002-04.The columns, originally published in the Indian Express and Financial Express, reflect the views of Chidambaram, finance minister between 1996 and 1998 and again 2004 onwards, on a range of issues that remain important regardless of the government in power. They also provide snapshots of the Indian economy in good times and bad. This collection covers subjects such as agriculture, reforms, budgets, forex reserves, economic growth and tax policies. It also offers perceptive political analyses and some telling comments on social issues. Far more than mere reactions to developments during that period, Chidambaram provides the reader with an extraordinarily clear understanding of the problems underlying the Indian economy-and its politics-and ways of solving them.
The Professional
In the new era, where every person’s actions have the potential to have a global impact, we must redefine what it means to be a true professional. By common definition, a professional is someone who possesses the skills and knowledge necessary to do a job-whether it’s a top degree from a prestigious university or simply years of on-the-job training. For centuries, we have relied on this definition to help us determine who is capable and who is not, often assuming that the person with the most professional characteristics is the best for the job. But every day we see examples of so-called professionals who do more harm than good: a few irresponsible bankers whose get-rich-quick schemes led to a global financial meltdown; a once-respected hedge fund manager charged with running the world’s largest Ponzi scheme and robbing his clients of billions; a team of executives siphoning funds from their employees’ pension plans . . . the list goes on. All of these people had the qualities necessary to do their jobs well, but instead they chose to abuse and corrupt their professions for their own personal gain. So how can we weed out the best from the worst when the accepted standards are no longer enough, and when even the most powerful and respected among us cannot be trusted? According to businessman and bestselling author Subroto Bagchi, the first step is to redefine what it means to be a professional. Today, it takes more than just aptitude-it takes a commitment to do what’s right, not only for your business, but for society as a whole. The Professional outlines the explicit and implicit code of conduct. This is a must read for anyone looking for a little clarity in an increasingly blurry world.
Business Legends
The Golden age of Indian industry, as it now seems in retrospect, lasted from 1951 to “62. and industrialists of the lime were not afraid to think ahead and plan big. Among the entrepreneurs who led this Industrial resurgence, four were particularly outstanding, G.D. Birla, Walchand Hirachand, Kasturbhai Lalbhai and, J.R.D. Tata. Gita Piramal, author of the acclaimed Business Maharajas, sensitively recreates the Lives and Times of these four titans of industry. She draws upon hitherto untapped sources of information to Sketch her profiles, making htis perhaps the closest Look at these legends this fair. Thought provoking and incisive. Business Legends is a compelling Account of ambition and achievement.
Unusual People Do Things Differently
Unusual people are ordinary people who strive hard to do extraordinary things. They are sensitive to nuances, look to provide lateral solutions, dare to think out of the box, and often end up changing the rules of the game.T.G.C. Prasad presents the views and experiences of sixty-five individuals, from well-known names like Mike Lawrie, Azim Premji and Mother Teresa to a chef, a masseuse and a service boy, with whom he has had meaningful interactions and who have inspired him. He includes people from a broad professional spectrum; CEOs, doctors, the director general of police, realtors, an attorney, a chartered accountant, a consultant and a sports coach are among those who make his list. Singling out a dominant factor from each person’s story, he outlines the journeys these people undertook and the behaviours they exhibited, and shows how these link up to the results they achieved.Unusual People Do Things Differently is full of pithy everyday management lessons and offers valuable insights to everyone who aspires to grow, manage and lead.
Jugaad Innovation
‘Jugaad’ is a word often heard in general conversation in India. Whether to find ingenious solutions to problems or turn adversity into opportunity, Indians swear by it. In this seminal book, Navi Radjou, Jaideep Prabhu, and Simone Ahuja challenge the very way a traditional organization thinks and acts. Leading companies such as Facebook, Future Group, GE, Google, PepsiCo, Philips, Renault-Nissan, Siemens, Suzlon, Tata Group and YES BANK, among others, are already practising jugaad to generate original ideas and pioneer growth. In the midst of rising global competition and swelling R&D budgets, Jugaad Innovation presents ways to innovate, be flexible and do more with less. Peppered with examples of innovative entrepreneurs in emerging markets such as Africa, India, China and Brazil, Jugaad Innovation illuminates paths to engender breakthrough growth in a complex and resource-scarce world.
The TCS Story . . . And Beyond
In 2003, Tata Consultancy Services set itself a mission: ‘Top Ten by 2010’. In 2009, a year ahead of schedule, TCS made good on that promise: in fourteen years, the company had transformed itself from the $155 million operation that
S.Ramadorai inherited as CEO in 1996. Today it is one of the world’s largest IT software and services companies with more than 2,40,000 people working in forty-two countries, and annual revenues of over $10 billion.
The TCS story is one of modern India’s great success stories. In this fascinating book, S. Ramadorai, one of the country’s most respected business leaders, recounts the steps to that extraordinary success, and outlines a vision for the future where the quality initiatives he undertook can be applied to a larger national framework.