Happy Hours: The Penguin Book of Cocktails is a first of its kind and all that you will need to set up your very own bar and make it the most talked-about one in town.
It will show you how to master basic techniques and impress your guests: keep your glasses sparkling clean, create decorative ice cubes and use a cocktail shaker with panache. It will tell you about the origins, production and classification of different types of liquor, and provide smart tips on preserving and serving them. It will treat you to a splendid selection of over 650 recipes-from classics such as the Tom Collins and Daiquiri to unique concoctions like the Maheshwar Margarita (a feni-Cointreau-lemon juice mix) and Mango Bellini to inventive punches, mocktails and heady mixtures guaranteed to cure hangovers-complete with meticulous instructions on measurements, suggested glassware and garnishes, as well as a few tricks to reinvent popular mixes.
Along the way, you’ll also pick up
– Up-to-date information on premier liquor brands and their availability in India
– Entertaining asides on sundry topics of interest, from the most expensive whisky in the world to the status of alcohol in ancient Indian society
– Crucial advice on how to recover from a night of hectic partying
– A comprehensive glossary that provides clear definitions of otherwise unfamiliar terms
Whether you’re a professional bartender or a generous host, planning a lavish party or simply looking to add zing to an evening drink, this stylish, sumptuous book is the ultimate companion for your bar.
How can one survive in a market that is volatile and uncertain?
Which strategies have and have not worked in the past?
What does it take to be successful in India?
What are the successful strategies applied by the likes of HUL, Godrej, Adani Ports and redBus?
So what does it take to ‘ride the tiger’? Sound and flexible strategy, operational excellence, and dedication to customer-centric innovation. But what does that really mean? How have successful Indian companies managed challenges in an extremely price-sensitive market? In this book, Wilfried Aulbur and Amit Kapoor look at successful and sometimes not-so-successful strategies, operations and innovations in India. They have distilled lessons from their decades of practical work experience in the country. From large family conglomerates like Tata and Godrej to newer additions like Adani, from MNCs like Maruti Suzuki to start-ups in Bangalore and Gurgaon-the book explores key learnings from all four kinds of companies in an Indian context and provides useful insights into how business is done in India.
We do our best thinking when our minds are free to wander, and our minds are most free when we do routine tasks like fetching ourselves a cup of coffee or watering the plants. Fetch Your Own Coffee is a compilation of such profound thoughts – that offer an alternative view of everything around us. Written and published as separate blogs over three years, each chapter included in this book has been widely read and discussed online before being handpicked and compiled in this one book of invaluable life lessons.
What do you need to do to be valued as an employee, and respected as a manager?
Every organization knows that human resources are its greatest asset. To really work well as a team, managers need to think like employees, and employees need to know what management really thinks.
But how?
This book presents 101 typical workplace situations, distinguishing Myth (perceived wisdom) from Reality (what actually happens on the ground) and describing the best approach to take in each scenario, both for managers and employees.
101 Myths and Realities @ the Office reveals the secrets that are key to optimizing your potential in the workplace.
‘It was a bizarre situation. The negotiators were in position in Iraq. The kidnappers and the kidnapped were in Iraq. At the crucial moment, the transport company in Kuwait expressed reservations about the ransom.’
In July 2004, a convoy of KGL trucks drove into Iraq from Kuwait carrying electronic equipment for the American occupiers, when the worst happened-three Indian drivers, three Kenyans and an Egyptian were ambushed, detained by unknown Iraqi dissidents and accused of collaborating with the Americans. A deadline was set for their execution. The countdown had begun.
The abduction drama that ensued had all the ingredients of a thriller: nail-biting suspense, high profile media coverage, international outrage at the plight of these humble workers, and political tightrope-walking. This gripping behind-the-scenes narration recounts what really happened in Baghdad when a team of negotiators was sent there and entered into secret talks through an intermediary whose very existence was not in public domain.
Anatomy of Abduction reveals for the first time the Indian crisis management team’s handling of the situation over forty-four days in occupied, lawless Iraq. The book gives an insight into the pressures that governments have to face as more and more innocent people become pawns in global chess games.
The education of their children is of paramount importance to all Indian parents. They spend tens of thousands of crores each year to get their young educated. The country fetes its successful students : from class X to board toppers and those who ‘crack the IIT JEE’ to those who clear the civil- services examination.
Yet things on the ground are dire.
About 70 per cent of all students ( in villages, towns and cities) have to make do with inferior schooling. Metropolitan newspapers are full of the difficulty of getting a nursery seat in a good school. And while there is a seat crunch in the better colleges too, only 10 per cent of all students between the ages of 18 and 21 are enrolled in college. Crores of educated Indians discover too late that they do not have the skills to land a suitable job.
Y.S. Rajan examines the gamut of issues involved in India’s efforts to educate its young people and the work required to fix schools, vocational training centres, colleges and universities. He argues that Indian education needs reforms on a scale comparable to those which freed the economy of the shackles of the licence-permit raj almost twenty years ago.
On an average, eleven hours a day for the rest of your life, you’ll either be working or travelling to your workplace. Now imagine being stuck in the wrong job! A study says that 80 per cent of Indians are unhappy with their jobs. Then how can we find a job that makes us happy? Is there a formula we can use to find our dream job?
Here is the answer!
Go on a journey with national bestselling author Chandan Deshmukh as he guides you through the various opportunities, challenges and turning points of any career. Learn about human personalities and how they’re suited for certain jobs; how to turn your ‘side hustle’ into opportune ventures and, most of all, how to find a job in which you’ll be happy.
‘Dhandha’, meaning business, is a term often used in common trade parlance in India. But there is no other community that fully embodies what the term stands for than the Gujaratis. Shobha Bondre’s Dhandha is the story of a few such Gujaratis: Jaydev Patel, the New York Life Insurance agent credited with having sold policies worth $2.5 billion so far; Bhimjibhai Patel, one of the country’s biggest diamond merchants and co-founder of the ambitious ‘Diamond Nagar’ in Surat; Dalpatbhai Patel, the motelier who went on to become the mayor of Mansfield County; Mohanbhai Patel, a former sheriff of Mumbai and the leading manufacturer of aluminium collapsible tubes; and Hersha and Hasu Shah, owners of over a hundred hotels in the US.
Travelling across continents-from Mumbai to the United States-in search of their stories and the common values that bind them, Dhandha showcases the powerful ambition, incredible capacity for hard work, and the inherent business sense of the Gujaratis.
Fail! And we are stamped for life. Don’t we try and run from failure all our lives? But, ‘spontaneous doing has to go through failures’. Acknowledging failure is singularly the most difficult thing to do. It takes tremendous courage to come out and say, yes, I failed. Shweta Punj chronicles sixteen leaders who have celebrated their failure as much as their success. Each story is an anatomy of failure. So whether it was the difference between ‘need’ and ‘want’ that led Abhinav Bindra to miss that winning shot, or whether it was a suicide attempt that pushed Sabyasachi Mukherjee into fully realizing his potential-these stories will encourage you to look at failure differently.
You don’t need an MBA or a job with a top company to be a good manager. Amit Chatterjee, in his provocative and contemplative book, explains how managers can excel beyond expectations. He urges managers to act of their own volition and shows how to transcend from being managers to leaders. Through illustrations and useful graphs, the author offers purposeful practices for leadership. Ascent provides a growth mantra for managers and how they can emerge as leader-managers through investment in complexity and volition. It is a must-read for all managers who want to grow and become effective leaders.
