Earlier this week, when every reporter in the US was leaning into the wind in New York to yell into the camera about Sandy the Hurricane, a French friend put up a Facebook update about how oh yeah, Sandy the Hurricane had actually ripped through the Caribbean before it arrived at the hallowed shores of New York. At about the same time, a Canadian friend wrote an update about how Sandy the Hurricane was shortly going to cross the US border in Maine into Canada. Those reporters had almost nothing to say about Sandy&rsquo;s effect on Haiti or on Saskatchwan, though it&rsquo;s also true that Saskatchwan is a difficult name to yell into the camera.

Think perspective

Business Standard

The volume of press that a US election generates is just short of gross. Are you sick of it yet? Not me. I can&rsquo;t quite let go, because I&rsquo;m so relieved at the result.

Mitali Saran: 2012 vision

I committed, a few weeks ago, to spending one column telling you what&rsquo;s so great about tango. This is that column &mdash; partly because I meant to think up some other ideas, but didn&rsquo;t have time now that I spend all my waking hours looking up YouTube videos of debates and newsclips related to the US election. It beats me why I&rsquo;m so interested in the US election. I suspect that CNN has somehow found a way to whisper into people&rsquo;s ears as they sleep about how the US&rsquo;s choice will impact us all.

Tango crack II

Ah, October in Delhi: a nip in the early morning and late evening air, cool breezes, blue skies; and all around, the acrid but always invigorating smell of schadenfreude.

Mitali Saran: The battle of the moustaches

One of the great perks of tuning into the news, recently, was watching anchors try to say &ldquo;Pussy Riot&rdquo;. I remember, two years ago, tuning in to watch them try to say &ldquo;Eyjafjallaj&ouml;kull&rdquo;, but &ldquo;Pussy Riot&rdquo; is way more fun. They can&rsquo;t repurpose their snigger instincts into indulgent smiles about young punk-rocker collectives with weird names (wotchergonnado), since it&rsquo;s a story about hot young women getting tossed into one of Russia&rsquo;s very serious clinks. So they struggle with all kinds of syllable stress tricks to help them keep a straight face. Puh-SEE-RYE-t. POO-see Write. PuZY Right. And (from NDTV) Pussy-uh, Riot-uh. No, there&rsquo;s just no good way to say it without sounding idiotic.

The Internet laugh riot

There&rsquo;s something depressing about following the US presidential elections, however glancingly, in contrast to our own (mostly) five-yearly national carnival. The US process is far from perfect, as anyone who recalls the Florida vote-counting fiasco of 2004 would agree, but it has many upsides. It&rsquo;s fairly simple. It&rsquo;s fairly transparent. It&rsquo;s torn to shreds by the 24/7 basilisk eye of the media.

Mitali Saran: Red, white and blue

Ajmal Kasab&rsquo;s expressionless face has been branded in a billion heads since that day in November 2008 when India sat riveted to the three-day orgy of violence unfolding in Mumbai.

Mitali Saran: Maybe death is too good

You know how, when you have the delicious feeling that life is sorted &mdash; bills paid, great friends, good food, lots of tango &mdash; you also develop the creepy feeling that it&rsquo;s all too good to last? Mark that feeling. For it is widely recognised that when life looks really good, you can bet your bottom dollar that a shitstorm is not far behind.

Perspective: an ode

The drama about cartoonist Aseem Trivedi, tossed in the clink by the Maharashtra police on charges of sedition, has been jostling for space with the drama about a Libyan mob attacking the US consulate in Benghazi to protest a film whose best feature is tastelessness, made by some shadowy guy whom nobody seems to know and everyone seems to dislike.

Mitali Saran: Good offences make good neighbours

I love US presidential elections, those media-drunk carnivals of image manipulation.

Democrips and Rebloodicans

People love to talk about &ldquo;reasonable restrictions&rdquo; on free speech. &ldquo;Reasonable&rdquo; turns out to be what they personally consider to be reasonable. The most generous will draw the line at &ldquo;incitement to violence&rdquo;, asking &ndash; rhetorically &ndash; whether the freedom to create any book, painting, speech or act is really worth spilling precious blood and losing irreplaceable lives. But wherever they draw the free speech line, it is almost certainly different from the next guy&rsquo;s. And that&rsquo;s why it doesn&rsquo;t work.

Mitali Saran: Free speech vs free-for-all

It could be that the prime minister is very clever and we citizens are very stupid. That must be why I, for one, cannot understand what on god&rsquo;s earth he&rsquo;s thinking. I&rsquo;m referring to the mysterious connection between two-thirds of India going dark for the better part of two days, and the power minister immediately getting promoted to home.

Mitali Saran: Whistling in the dark

So there I was, floating in a crystalline blue infinity pool, gazing out at the staggering aquamarine water that demarcates a reef, in the Maldives. Earlier in the day I&rsquo;d been immersed in the gluey blue twilight of a lagoon, swimming side by side with manta rays. An aside: The nicest thing that can be said about a manta ray&rsquo;s mouth is, Well, that&rsquo;s certainly different. Please google it. Nobody should reach the end of life having never looked into the mouth of a feeding manta ray. It&rsquo;s much like suddenly happening upon an ugly baby&mdash;it gives you a nasty turn, which if you weren&rsquo;t wearing a snorkel would pop out of your mouth as a bark of alarm; and then you immediately feel guilty about it.

Manta matinees

If you turned on the television the day Olympic medal-winning boxer Mary Kom came home, you saw rings of police personnel struggling through a mob, trying to keep it at bay from what looked like &mdash; well, nothing. Mary Kom is a very diminutive person, so for several seconds it looked like anarchy focussed on a small empty centre.

Mitali Saran: Smells like team spirit

Every so often, when the world has a fortnight like the one just gone, I think about Douglas Adams&rsquo;s The Hitchhiker&rsquo;s Guide to the Galaxy trilogy of four books. If you haven&rsquo;t read them, please put down that copy of Fifty Shades of Grey and start immediately. It is the most useful guide to life ever, after the instruction manual that comes with the average phone, which today looks much more like a NASA console than any NASA console ever did.

Take me to Squornshellous Zeta

So last year, while many terribly important things were happening in the world, I began to learn the tango. Please do not ask how this happened, because it involves a love story that ends in Kleenex and vodka and generally reaffirms the mulish transience of the world.

Tango crack

Parting is such sweet sorrow, but coming back is a hoot. A few weeks ago I was in Java and Sumatra on one of those travel-writing assignments that make it worth getting up in the morning. It&rsquo;s been 25 years since I stepped on Indonesian soil, as regular readers of this column may recall-and by that I mean readers of this column when it last appeared on a weekly basis, which was 19 months ago. Given the pace of life these days, those readers will long since have grown up, gotten married, become disillusioned with their career choices, gotten divorced, had hip replacement surgery, and moved countries to get away from their poxy grandchildren.

Return of the native

Investment banker type&rdquo; is shorthand, among the less well-paid, for a person who builds his or her life on bourgeois safety, creature comforts, flashy toys and frantic networking. It&rsquo;s not a compliment, especially after 2008. Bhaskar* is a middle-aged financial engineer on Wall Street whose life has the familiar patina of glamour, and is pitted with the usual problems: difficult relationships, cultural hopscotch, inner turmoil. But meeting an investment banker type like Bhaskar is like going from the sauna into the ice pool &mdash; a healthy shock to the system.

Mitali Saran: The banker and the sadhu

I&rsquo;ve been getting that spooky feeling lately, of walking in the door to find that things are unusually quiet. There are signs that someone was just there &mdash; soiled coffee cups on the table, still-smoking cigarette butts crushed out in the ashtray &mdash; but your hollered hellos go unanswered. You pick up the phone and dial, but that seriously annoying fake-chirpy voice comes on: &ldquo;The number you are trying to reach is currently unreachable. Please try again, or call later.

Latchkey nation

Swapan Seth, who runs an advertising firm called Equus with his brother, is a focused, intelligent man who gives off a kind of coiled energy. He describes himself as hyper and anxious. &ldquo;Oddly enough, though, people see me as calm and collected,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;So the panic attacks felt like a bit of a chink in the armour.

Mitali Saran: The maven and the panic attacks

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who think that smoking is a pitifully stupid, self-destructive thing to do; and those who totally agree and will nevertheless calmly disembowel you if you try to take away their cigarettes.

Nicotine no-no

Navi Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], January 10: Widely known as the better half of Mumbai, Navi Mumbai is set to redefine urban luxury with the emergence of New Palm Beach. Envisaged by Delta, Bhagwati, and Pyramid, this exclusive coastal vicinity is poised to surpass the iconic Palm Beach Road, offering a more thoughtfully planned neighborhood surrounded by natural beauty and global business hubs.

Navi Mumbai Welcomes A New Palm Beach

Noida (Uttar Pradesh) [India], January 10: Bhikharam Chandmal (BC), pioneers of the iconic Bikaner Bhujia and a leading name in the Indian snacks industry, made a powerful impact at IndusFood 2025, Asia's premier F &amp; B trade show held at India Expo Mart, Noida. Celebrated for its rich heritage and innovative branding, Bhikharam Chandmal was awarded the Best Branding Award, recognizing its exceptional commitment to quality, trust, and a unified brand identity.

BC Awarded \"Best Branding Award\" at IndusFood 2025

Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], January 10: In the heart of India's vibrant music scene, a stage is set, and the spotlight is ready to shine on the next wave of singing sensations. Radio City, the nation's leading radio network, proudly announces the launch of Season 16 of its legendary talent hunt, 'Radio City Super Singer' (RCSS). Over the years, RCSS has become more than just a competition; it's a journey that transforms dreams into reality, uncovering voices that resonate with the soul of a nation.

Radio City Launches RCSS Season 16 - A Nationwide Talent Hunt Across 39 Cities

Markets regulator Sebi on Friday came out with a procedure for seeking a waiver or reduction of interest concerning recovery proceedings initiated by it for failure to pay penalty.
Under this, Sebi said the applicant's requests for waiver/reduction is required to be submitted to the relevant recovery officer, with documentation supporting the fulfilment of three criteria from Section 220(2A) of the Income Tax Act, 1961.
Section 220(2A) allows the waiver or reduction of this interest under specific conditions.
The criteria include payment of such an amount causing genuine hardship to the applicant; default was due to circumstances beyond the applicant's control and the applicant has cooperated in any related inquiry.
In its circular, Sebi said applications are allowed only if the notice of demand has already been served and the principal amount due is fully paid.
The Sebi's recovery officer will forward the application to the competent authority, which will take a decision within 1

SEBI

Hyderabad (Telangana) [India], January 10: Imagine a journey through India, not just through its landscapes, but through its heart - its vibrant culinary traditions. Kingfisher Enterprises India Private Limited invites you on this flavorful expedition, bringing the incredible tastes of India to your homes, right here in Tamil Nadu and beyond.

Get Ready to Savor India with Kingfisher Enterprises

Stock Market Highlights: Indian markets declined for the second consecutive session, ending the week on a negative note on Friday. The 30-share Sensex slipped 241.30 points or 0.31 per cent

sensex nifty stock market share market

Veteran writer, poet and filmmaker Pritish Nandy breathed his last on Wednesday at the age of 73

Pritish Nandy

On a sequential basis, the profit after tax (PAT) grew 10 per cent over Rs 387.75 crore reported in Q2FY25

IREDA

Stocks to Watch, Jan 10, 2025: TCS, IREDA, Tata Elxsi will be in focus post their Q3 results, also, Swiggy, Zomato, Vi and others will be on the radar

trading, market, stocks

British telecom firm Vodafone has sold its entire stake in Indus Towers for Rs 2,800 crore, the telecom infrastructure firm said on Friday.
Vodafone has sold 7.92 crore or 3 per cent stake in Indus Towers and used Rs 890 crore from the proceeds to clear lenders dues, the company said in a regulatory filing.
"Vodafone Group Plc announces that it has successfully completed the placing of its remaining 79.2 million shares in Indus Towers Limited ("Indus") representing 3.0 per cent of Indus' outstanding share capital through an accelerated book build offering on 5 December 2024," the filing said.
The company held 3 per cent stake through its indirect wholly-owned subsidiaries, Omega Telecom Holdings Pvt Ltd and Usha Martin Telematics Limited.
"Residual proceeds of Rs 19.1 billion (USD 225 million) have been used to acquire 1.7 billion equity shares in Vodafone Idea Limited through a preferential allotment of shares (a "Capital Raise"), increasing Vodafone's shareholding in Vi to 24.39

Vodafone

The Budget had assumed nominal GDP to grow 10.5 per cent for FY25

fiscal deficit

A five-judge bench of the Supreme Court will on January 9 consider the pleas seeking review of its October 2023 verdict declining legal sanction to same-sex marriage.
A bench comprising Justices B R Gavai, Surya Kant, B V Nagarathna, P S Narasimha and Justice Dipankar Datta will take up about 13 petitions related to the matter in chambers.
According to practice, the review pleas are considered in chambers by judges. The top court had refused to allow an open-court hearing on the review pleas.
The new bench was constituted after Justice Sanjiv Khanna, the present CJI, recused from hearing the review petitions on July 10, 2024.
Notably, Justice P S Narasimha is the only member of the original Constitution bench comprising five judges which delivered the verdict, as former CJI D Y Chandrachud and Justices S K Kaul, Ravindra Bhat, and Hima Kohli have retired.
According to the Supreme Court's causelist, the review petitions would be considered at around 1.55 pm  on January 9.
A five-j

SC, Supreme Court

Going forward, the earnings season, which starts this week, will provide further cues to the market

share market stock market trading

Optimism on revenue growth based on projected improvement in technology spending in CY25

IT industry, IT companies, IT sector, Jobs, IT jobs

Delhi police on Tuesday argued in the Delhi High Court that February 2020 riots were a result of "clinical and pathological conspiracy" executed with a "diabolical intention and ruthless intensity".
Opposing the pleas of activists Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam and others seeking bail in the case under UAPA, Delhi Police informed a bench of Justices Navin Chawla and Shalinder Kaur the "chaos and mayhem on the road" led to the deaths of 53 people, including a policeman, besides devastation of commercial and residential properties.
The police said in a case of "grave" offences, the principle of "bail is the rule and jail is the exception" will not apply.
"This is the gamut and spread of violence. We have 929 commercial establishments broken and 566 residential units broken. Relief disbursed to the injured is more than Rs 20 crore. With this kind of violence, the case of the prosecution is (that) it is a case of clinical, pathological conspiracy, planned and executed with diabolical ...

Delhi riots

Subrahmanyan's '90-hour workweek' formula is one step ahead of Infosys founder Narayan Murthy's suggestion of working 70-hours a week

SN Subrahmanyan

Challenging the decision of the Biden Administration to investigate the activities of Indian billionaire Gautam Adani and his companies, an influential Republican lawmaker on Tuesday said such selective actions risk damaging critical alliance partners.
In a strongly worded letter to US Attorney General Merrick B Garland, Congressman Lance Gooden, member of the House Judiciary Committee, demanded answers on the Justice Department's selective prosecution of foreign entities and the potential harm such actions pose to US's global alliances and economic growth and that if there is any Geroge Soros connection to it.
The Department of Justice's selective actions risk damaging critical alliances with key partners like India, one of America's strongest allies in the Asia-Pacific region, Gooden said in his letter dated January 7.
Instead of pursuing cases with tenuous jurisdiction and limited relevance to US interests, the DOJ should focus on punishing bad actors at home, rather than chasing

Gautam Adani, Adani

The temporary work permits are the only real way to employ Indian immigrants in the US, since national caps make it nearly impossible for them to get a green card

H-1B Visa

Though not officially announced, the 15-min delivery tab has been added to select locations in Mumbai and Bengaluru

Zomato 15 min food delivery | Photo: Screenshot from Zomato app

Zomato 15 min food delivery

Knowing Manmohan was one of the greatest privileges of my life. He showed me and everybody else what leadership and service truly mean

Mitali Saran

Mitali Saran

Page 12 - Mitali Saran

Think perspective

Mitali Saran: 2012 vision

Tango crack II

Mitali Saran: The battle of the moustaches

The Internet laugh riot

Mitali Saran: Red, white and blue

Mitali Saran: Maybe death is too good

Perspective: an ode

Mitali Saran: Good offences make good neighbours

Democrips and Rebloodicans

Mitali Saran: Free speech vs free-for-all

Mitali Saran: Whistling in the dark

Manta matinees

Mitali Saran: Smells like team spirit

Take me to Squornshellous Zeta

Tango crack

Return of the native

Mitali Saran: The banker and the sadhu

Latchkey nation

Mitali Saran: The maven and the panic attacks

Latest News

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Navi Mumbai Welcomes A New Palm Beach

BC Awarded "Best Branding Award" at IndusFood 2025

Radio City Launches RCSS Season 16 - A Nationwide Talent Hunt Across 39 Cities

Sebi outlines procedure for seeking waiver of interest on penalty payment

Get Ready to Savor India with Kingfisher Enterprises

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Stock Market Highlights: Sensex drops 241 pts, Nifty at 23,431; broader mkts sink 2%; TCS rallies 6%

RIP, Pritish Nandy: Bold, brash, brilliant, and a man for all seasons

Ireda Q3 results: Net profit rises 27% to Rs 425.35 crore, revenue up 37%

Stocks to Watch, Jan 10, 2025: TCS, IREDA, Tata Elxsi, Swiggy, Zomato, SAIL

Vodafone exits Indus Towers, raises Rs 2,800 cr; clears Rs 890 cr dues