India climbs to 15th in world ad ranking

MUMBAI: Indian advertising has just scaled a new high. India has moved up six notches from 21 to 15 in the list countries with the highest advertising awards, according to the Gunn Report of 2007.

India has moved ahead of China, New Zealand, Mexico and South Africa, among others, to notch up a total of 39 points for award winning campaigns in Print, TV and Interactive. In addition to this, HappyDent Palace, one of the most awarded commercials from this year, made it to the top 10 most awarded commercials in 2007.

The Gunn Report is an annual rating of creative work based on the awards won by advertising agencies in nearly 60 different award shows. Donald Gunn, the author of the Gunn Report, had been with Leo Burnett for over 35 years. The country with the most awarded advertisements is the US, which nudged ahead of the UK in 2007.

Besides HappyDent, only one other Indian ad made it to the most awarded list. Ogilvy & Mather’s ad for Indian Association for Adoption, which was the 12th most awarded print campaign of 2007. The most awarded TV ad was Sony Bravia’s Paint ad, created by Fallon, while the print honours went to Clima Bicycle Locks, created by Leo Burnett Bangkok.

As a result of creating two highly awarded ads, both McCann Erickson and O&M have made it to the list of most awarded agencies globally. McCann stood joint 22nd while O&M stood joint 45th.

Says McCann Erickson India chairman and NCD Prasoon Joshi: “We were certainly expecting to score high because we’ve performed very well and got global accolades. But we didn’t expect to see HappyDent in the top 10.” Mr Joshi felt that the work from Indian agencies was improving but everyone would have to do consistently good work to be able to move into the top 10 next year.

Also making an entry into the list was Equinox Films, headed by Ram Madhvani. Equinox was joint 17th with a total of nine points for the most awarded production houses. Ram Madhvani retains his 11th place as the most awarded director.

This year, the Gunn Report has also included interactive as a category to evaluate creative performance for agencies, and a few Asian countries haven’t had enough to show in this category. Had India been evaluated on Print and TV scores alone it would have been ranked 13th.

The most awarded agency for 2007 went to TBWA/Chiat/Day (New York) which was ranked a lowly 43 last year while BBDO retained the most awarded agency network for 2007, making it five wins out of nine Gunn Reports.

Stocks rising for India’s billionaires

India’s dollar billionaire club has got bigger and fatter this year, powered by a surging stock market that made the old rich get phenomenally richer, while ushering in new billionaires who control growing real estate and infrastructure companies.

Forbes, the US-based magazine that tracks billionaires worldwide, largely on the strength of the share market value of their holdings measured in US dollars, said on Thursday that led by steel baron Lakshmi N. Mittal, who is worth $51 billion, the top four Indian billionaires are collectively measured at $180 billion. That is nearly Rs 7.2 lakh crore.

These four, who include brothers Mukesh Ambani ($49 billion) and Anil Ambani ($45 billion) and DLF chairman K.P. Singh ($35 billion),

together are worth more than the top 40 of Chinese billionaires.

Collectively, Indian billionaires were worth more than $351 billion, more than double the $170 billion last year, thanks largely to the surge in the value of the stocks they own.

The rich list of India contains 40 US dollar billionaires, who include names such as Vijay Mallya of the UB group, Venugopal Dhoot of Videocon, Wipro’s Azim Premji,

Kumar Mangalam Birla and wind power baron Tulsi Tanti of Suzlon.

The net worths fall when shares do. The bulk of the new billionaires are from the real estate and infrastructure sectors which are riding high on the back of stock market listing of companies feeding a hunger for homes and offices and sitting on large tracts of urban land bought many years ago.

India-born Harvard alumnus' gift to alma mater

New Delhi-born Sanjeev K Mehra, managing director and partner in the principal investment area of Goldman, Sachs & Co, where he leads the industrial private equity investing effort and is the key benefactor of the envisaged $4 million South Asia chair at Harvard University, says it is simply a case "of giving back".

Mehra, who came to the US at age 19, told rediff.com in an interview that he and his wife Karen Peterson Mehra, whose gift would endow the 'Mehra Family Professorship of South Asian Studies' in support of Harvard's major expansion of activity related to South Asia, "both met at Harvard College where we were both classmates in 1982, where I was an economics major and she was doing government studies."

After their undergraduate degrees, after a two-year stint at McKinsey and Co, Mehra went to Harvard Business School from where he received an MBA, while Karen went on to do a masters in anthropology at Columbia University.

"I have benefited in many ways from Harvard and so did she," he said, and added, "After all, we met there, and so we were trying to figure out how to contribute back and the idea came up of trying to do something that would link India and America."

"When I was at Harvard there was very little study of India and South Asia. There was a lot of study of China and Japan, but very little of South Asia, and given that one in four people in the world live in the Indian subcontinent, we felt it was important to shine the light on what was going on there. And, to do so, not in a sense of its history or mythology or religion -- there has been a lot of focus on that (at Harvard)," Mehra said.

"What we said is, we'd like this professorship to be focused on contemporary India, and it didn't have to be tied to any one area of expertise and it could be university-wide -- so giving the university the most flexibility to appoint someone that met their needs," he explained.

Mehra also said that there was no specificity that the professorship be tied to contemporary India, vis-�-vis business and economy, "but all of the contemporary India -- social issues, political issues, economic issues, all of those. Things that affect people's lives day to day in the country."

He said the discussions had gone on for some time with Harvard faculty led by the director of the South Asia Initiative Professor Sugata Bose and a number of other professors at Harvard, "but there was never enough critical mass, and finally I think enough of us got together and said this is the right time."

"And, it happened to coincide with my wife and my 25th reunion or graduation from Harvard and so we thought it was the right thing to do," he added.

Mehra said the selection of the scholar who would occupy this chair when it is established, was "entirely up to the university. They'll inform us of course, but it's their decision."

Mehra said ultimately his hope was that this chair and the South Asia Institute would "allow a lot more students and faculty to experience and learn and research about India and for Harvard to be the center of not just Indian, but South Asian studies in America, where it is viewed as the 'go to' institution -- where there will be the South Asia experts, where there would be people of importance from India who will come visit regularly and people from the university who travel on behalf of Harvard to India. Essentially, bring the two worlds a little bit closer, both in terms of understanding and impact on our society."

Mehra said it was a no-brainer that India "is already a major global player," and that his own company that has been invested in India and "has a long history there," had recently redoubled its "efforts over there."

"There is no Fortune 500 company board that doesn't think about what it's doing in India, its India strategy and so forth," he argued. "India has always been an important factor," in the globalising world, "but now, given what's going on in the last five years, it's emerged as a force in its own right."

Mehra spoke of how the exponential growth of Indian companies holding their own among the leading multinationals of the world "and the wealth creation that's taking place there, the approach that the government has, the coordination with business in terms of what they are trying to achieve. These are all new things and I believe there's no going back."

He acknowledged that he was "not so close to what goes on day to day in terms of monetary policy," to predict if the declarations of the likes of Finance Minister P Chidambaram and others are on the mark in terms of India likely to maintain sustained growth rates of 9-10 per cent annually with no fear of the economy over-heating.

But Mehra said he believed India today, was awash with "enlightened leadership, people who are technocrats, people to understand the global economy, who understand that India is inextricably linked to what's going on in the world -- that it cannot be an island, that the policies cannot be so different from the rest of the world, whether it's privatisation or inflows of capital or how Indian companies grab the incentives to go abroad, etc."

Besides serving on PIA's investment committee and heading up its operating committee, Mehra, who joined Goldman Sachs in 1986, also serves on the business practices committee of the firm.

He is also currently on the boards of Adam Aircraft Industries, Inc, ARAMARK Corporation, Burger King Corporation, KAR Holdings (Adesa), Hawker-Beechcraft Holdings, Sigma Electric and SunGard Data Systems. He also serves on the board of trustees of Trout Unlimited and Oakman School, England.

Now Made in India Router

Bangalore: BA Systems has launched EN 3500 - a �Made in India� router. Conceptualised and designed out of Bangalore and manufactured out of Chennai, it is a carrier grade, multi-process modular router operating system with inbuilt firewall, VPN, QoS, IDS, IPS and content filtering.

�The EN3500 provides enterprises an alternative to high-cost non-local products, by combining latest technology, future-proofed architecture, yet cost-effective. Combined with loc al support, BA Systems is well primed to provide both Capex and Opex savings to the enterprise,� said P.J. Singh, Founder & CEO, BA Systems, in a release.

The Point-Click-Enable feature of the EN 3500 empowers the user to point and click on the BA Systems Management GUI to configure, monitor and troubleshoot devices anywhere on the network.

India crosses rocket science milestone

Indian space scientists have reached a new galaxy with the successful test of the indigenous cryogenic stage which powers the gigantic Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV).

Indians have joined an exclusive league of scientists — from the US, Russia and Europe — who have the capability to design and build cryogenic engines which are critical for hoisting communication satellites as well as manned missions to space.

With this test today, we have a mature technology in cryogenic... They (scientists) are jubilant and confident of facing the future challenges of the GSLV-Mk III equally well. - G Madhavan Nair, Chairman, ISRO

The test was conducted for its full flight duration of 720 seconds at the liquid propulsion test facility at Mahendragiri, Tamil Nadu, on Thursday. With the successful completion of this test, the next flight of GSLV mid-2008 would be a cent per cent indigenous effort. “This test has given us confidence about the technology, systems and even helped us build a technology base of our own. It has also given the confidence to design a more powerful cryogenic for GSLV-Mark III scheduled to fly in 2009-end,” said ISRO head G. Madhavan Nair.

He said with such an engine, his organisation would be able to reduce the cost of launch of heavy satellites from about $20,000 a kg to about $12,000 a kg. “It will not only help our space programme but we will be able to bid for a slice of the global satellite launch market,” Mr Na

Next-Gen Windows Live In India

Microsoft has launched the next generation of Windows Live equipped with a new set of tools and services in the country.

The updated Windows Live has built-in security features that promise users an easier way to communicate and share from anywhere and across multiple devices.
Regarded as an all-in-one package, the new service complements Windows Vista and desktop applications, thus connecting the offline and online worlds.

There are enhancements made to popular Windows Live services, including Live Hotmail, Live Messenger, Live Spaces, and Live Writer. Also, new fun tools, such as Windows Live Photo Gallery and Windows Live Events have been added to the service.

The new Windows Live mail will enable users to aggregate multiple inboxes from other accounts like AOL and Gmail and combine multiple contact lists into one, and simple access using a mobile phone. Also, the new messenger will allow sharing, video calling, and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) capabilities.
Using the new Windows Live Photo Gallery, users will be able to find, fix, organize, and share photos and videos, as well as upload them to Windows Live Spaces, Flickr, or Soapbox on MSN Video.

According to Jaspreet Bindra, country manager (Online Services Business) of Microsoft India, Internet-savvy consumers are relying more and more on the Web to communicate and share with their friends and family. At the same time, they're also becoming increasingly frustrated with how difficult it's to keep track of all their email accounts, photos, blogs, address books, and other online information. According to Bindra, the superior level of digital technology will simplify all this.

The new Windows Live services also include Windows Live OneCare Family Safety, which provides tools to help parents protect children from inappropriate online content and contacts.

Those using Windows Vista or Windows XP operating systems can download the next-generation Windows Live service at http://get.live.com/.

Sachin Tendulkar: victim of his own achievements

Gwalior: Exactly 18 years after making his international debut at Karachi, Sachin Tendulkar batted with the freedom of youth, not weighed down by the past few months. Here was a man with very little left to prove in his career, yet having to reinforce his stature in the one-day side. Here was a man with a calendar-year average of 48.10, with 13 fifties and one hundred, and the second highest run-getter this year after Matthew Hayden, but having his place in the side questioned.

And on Thursday, he scored 97 sublime runs before an inside-edge rattled his stumps. Those runs set the stage for Yuvraj Singh and captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni to take India to a convincing six-wicket win over Pakistan and also clinch the series with one match to be played on Sunday.

There is an explanation to the questions raised over Tendulkar’s inclusion. Tendulkar has been a victim of his own achievements. The more he has succeeded, the more has been demanded from him. Even the smallest failure has been nitpicked at and blown up into a large-scale frailty. Premature obituaries have piled on.

But none of that mattered at Mohali and at Gwalior in this series. The batting was free of pre-innings labels. What rode on it was irrelevant. Mohali began with some difficulty, but what followed was a rush of runs. There was power, precision, balance and ease. The first three were largely contemporary, but the fourth was throwback.

Gwalior was something else. The placid pitch and an equally placid attack offered a perfect platform. Shot after shot was pulled off with astonishing timing. The length was picked right out of the bowler’s hand and the footwork responded quicker to hand him the fate he might not have deserved.

Slow motion replays showed the amount he put his wrists through for the square-leg boundaries. It proved that the essence of his batting had remained tucked away in a corner, protected from disruptive forces. Age, workload, pressure and injuries might have rendered some of his strengths inadequate, but his genius — the essence — has remained.

If only Umar Gul hadn’t singled him out for a sudden fit of accuracy. Gul has a natural in-swinger that can cramp some for room. If Tendulkar wasn’t unfortunate as it was to have found Gul at his rare best in Mohali, he also found Kamran Akmal at his acrobatic redeeming self.

Gwalior was the harder one to accept. Playing a shot that had fetched him plenty, the swing quickly turned fatal, and the bails were off.

There was an uneasy lull in the 30,000-capacity stadium after that, when Yuvraj and Dhoni were constructing the series-win for India. The brilliant innings would go down as a match-winning one.

“What can I say about Sachin?” said Dhoni after the match. “We all felt awful when he got out in the nineties again. But it cannot take away what all he has achieved this year. We all hope and pray that he will get his next hundred soon.”

Tendulkar himself had a wry smile when asked about it. “The important thing is that the team won the series. These things are part and parcel of the game. If I keep thinking about getting out in the nineties, then it will be hard to get the next hundred,” he said.

Hundred No. 41 came in January this year, followed by six missed chances. Numbers and statistics can be cold-blooded. What they record are the dismissals, but what they do not reveal, is the genius that preceded them.

A new Indian-born CEO- Shantanu Narayen

Adobe inches towards the $3 billion revenue mark, a new Indian-born CEO, Shantanu Narayen, replaces Bruce Chizen. He will be joining Adobe’s board of directors on December 1 this year.

He’s not new to the job, though, having been the company’s president and chief operating officer for the last three years. However, he wants to waste no time resting on past laurels.

His career began when he moved to Silicon Valley to work for Apple. Narayen earned an MBA from the Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley, in 1993 — studying nights while also working.

Following his tenure at Apple, Narayen did a stint at Silicon Graphics and then founded Pictra — an early entrant into the field of online digital photo sharing.

Narayen joined Adobe in January 1998 as vice-president and general manager of Adobe’s engineering technology group.

In January 1999, he was promoted to senior vice-president (worldwide products), and in March 2001 he was made executive vice-president (worldwide product marketing and development). He will now be at the helm of affairs.

Narayen faces global challenges as he takes the top spot at Adobe. Adobe, which offers Flash technology, widely used (installed on approximately 98 per cent of Internet-enabled desktops) to deliver media applications to computers, is seeing growing competition from Microsoft, which began offering a competing technology called “Silverlight” earlier this year.

Adobe has since combined Flash technology with its Reader technology to create a product called “AIR”, expected to be released next year.

Narayen says Adobe will continue to nurture innovation through its entrepreneur-in-residence programme. He intends to follow Chizen’s vision, which is to increase the core value of PDF across horizontal usage and also start shifting to a business model more geared to on-demand (or subscription) services and launch disruptive enterprise technologies.

What about India? The company is fast adding its headcount, building strategic products from India and capitalising its position in the emerging mobile market.

“With Adobe achieving a position in the digital media arena, I see our India centre becoming instrumental in our success story. India will emerge as an important centre, not because I am the CEO but because our development centre in Noida is one of the best. The research and development that happens out of India is second to none,” he says.

“There are a billion-odd customers in markets like China and India who access the Internet for the first time from mobiles. Getting the portable document format (PDF) on alternative devices is central to our strategy too.”

Also, as the set-top box becomes more a part of the living room to do things like browsing the web, Narayen believes it represents a great opportunity to extend the company’s PDF and Flash support.

World's-no-1-guru-is Indian

MUMBAI: India gave the world the word “guru”. And now, an Indian has been declared the world’s foremost management guru. C K Prahalad, professor at the University of Michigan’s Stephen M Ross School of Business, has been crowned the greatest management thinker alive by Thinkers 50, an annual ranking of the top 50 management thought leaders in the world.

In this year’s Thinkers 50 — released in London on Wednesday — Prahalad (No. 3 last year) has trumped the likes of former US Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, strategy guru Michael Porter and Microsoft founder Bill Gates to emerge as No. 1.

There are three other Indians in the top 50: CEO coach Ram Charan at No. 22 (up from No. 24 last year), innovation guru Vijay Govindarajan of the Tuck Business School at No. 23 (No. 31 last year); and Harvard’s Rakesh Khurana at No. 45 (No. 33 last year).

"Not many management thinkers actually follow up important early ideas with genuinely groundbreaking future ideas. This is what C K Prahalad has managed to do. His work with Gary Hamel set the strategic agenda of the 1990s. Now, with "The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid", he has established the social, entrepreneurial and economic agenda of our times," said Stuart Crainer and Des Dearlove of Suntop Media, the organisation which brings out the Thinkers 50 ranking.

TCS and INFOSYS are among worlds top 20 fintech companies

NEW YORK: Four Indian companies, including two of the country's biggest IT firms, TCS and Infosys, have been named among the world's 100 biggest technology providers to the global financial services industry. Tata Consultancy Services has also emerged as the first Indian firm to be named among the top 10 in the annual FinTech 100 list of financial industry technology vendors that was released here.

Besides TCS and Infosys, I-Flex Solutions and Patni Computer Services have been named in the list. TCS moved up three positions from 13th last year to be ranked as 10th biggest technology vendor in 2007. Infosys also moved up four positions to 14th this year. It had been ranked at 18th position in 2006 and 28th in 2005.

I-Flex and Patni have been ranked at 30th and 45th positions respectively in the FinTech 100 list that is topped by Fidelity Information Services of the US. TCS is the only second non-US firm in the top ten, besides the UK-based Reuters (8th) in the list.

Other companies in the top ten include Fiserve (2nd), NCR (3rd), Diebold (4th), SunGard (5th), Unisys (6th), Broadridge Financial Solutions (7th) and First Data Corp (9th).

The annual ranking is being published for four years now by American Banker, a banking and financial services daily, and Financial Insights, a unit of global independent technology advisory firm IDC.

In an accompanying list of top 25 enterprise technology vendors for the financial services industry, none of the Indian companies could make the mark.

Last year, India's third biggest IT firm Wipro was named on this list at 22nd position, but has moved out this year.
The enterprise software list has been topped by IBM, followed by Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Fujitsu, Cisco, Microsoft, Electronic Data Systems, Hitachi, Siemens Business Services and Accenture in the top ten.

Other companies on this 25-member list include Sun Microsystems, Intel, EMC, Computer Sciences Corp, Oracle, ATOS Origin, Capgemini, Getronics, LogicaCMG, SAP AG, Thomson Financial, Deloitte, Avaya, Symantec and BearingPoint.

In the FinTech 100 list of 2006, there were five Indian companies, TCS, Infosys, I-Flex (38th), Patni (50th) and SunTech (86th). While I-Flex and Patni have moved up in the rankings, Trivandrum-based SunTech has moved out this year.

American Banker and Financial Insights said in an accompanying report that all the FinTech 100 firms garnered more than 48 billion dollars in sales from financial institutions in 2006.

"The financial services industry relies on technology to remain competitive and address regulatory changes in an increasingly complex and dynamic market," American Banker Editor-in-Chief David Longobardi said.

"FinTech companies are growing faster than what the industry spends on technology... Acquisitions have played a part, but top vendors strive to become trusted partners with their financial institution customers," Financial Insights' Global Banking and Insurance Research Vice President Jeanne Capachin said.

The companies named to the list would be honoured at the BAI Retail Delivery Conference and Expo in Las Vegas on November 14 at the Mandalay Bay.

Mammal Origin in India

Many present day plant and animal species might have their origin in India, a new find has suggested.

Scientists have suggested the new theory after the discovery of a 66-million-year old tooth in central India. The newfound tooth was unearthed in a sedimentary rock sandwiched between lava flows from the late part of the Cretaceous period, which spanned from 145.5 to 65.5 million years ago.

According to a new study led by Guntupalli Prasad of the University of Jammu, the tooth may have belonged to one of the condylarths, which were a group of primitive mammals. They included the ancestors of modern hoofed animals such as goats, horses, cows, sheep, and deer.

Because the newfound molar is about three million years older than the earliest known Condylarth specimen, this places it on the Indian subcontinent at a time when the landmass was a drifting island that had just broken away from the super continent called Gondwana. This has fuelled speculation about many mammal species originating in India.

"Many researchers had postulated that mammalian groups may have originated from basal Gondwanan stocks during the northward flight of India and finally dispersed to Asia when India collided with the Asian mainland around 55 million years ago," said Prasad.

Scientists are also supporting this theory because mammal fossils found on the southern continents that date to the time of Gondwana are quite rare.

"With a few minor exceptions, the only other place where there are really good records of mammals at that time is North America," said J David Archibald, an evolutionary biologist at San Diego State University.

But some researchers are puzzled about the primitive tooth's presence in India. "How did this animal get onto India, when the landmass was probably about in the middle of the Indian Ocean on a rapid drift northward?" asks Kenneth Rose, a palaeontologists. "That's one of the really intriguing questions here. If it is an ungulate (hoofed mammal), it provides an interesting scenario that some primitive stock got onto India and later evolved into ungulates," he speculates.

An interesting hypothesis is that good interspecies exchange existed between India and the Asian continent even during the Cretaceous period.

If so, the early ungulates might not have originated in India but somehow moved there from northern locales, where their fossils are more commonly found. "But it's still quite interesting to realize that there is some kind of placental mammal that was on India in the late Cretaceous period," said Rose.

Wishing you all the joy, all the warmth, all the happiness, that will make this Diwali special for U and that will crown all your efforts with success

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home delivery - happy diwali

Is there a market for new small cars?

The future is with the small car

India might be a rapidly growing economy too, but it's the small car that's going to dominate our roads, generate volumes and strengthen manufacturers' bottomlines in future. Consider a few market realities: firstly, many more people are buying cars now than even a year ago and this number is growing exponentially. Overall, the Indian market for small cars – has grown 17% annually.

Secondly, with rising disposable incomes, Indians are graduating from bare-bones mini-cars to premium hatchbacks that offer a lot more in terms of space, comfort and aspirational value. This has been illustrated by the tremendous response to Chevrolet Spark since its launch few months ago.

Incredible India @ 60

There could hardly be a better way to celebrate sixty years of Independent India than to invite some of the finest minds in the country to celebrate the idea of India and debate the future. And this is exactly what transpired at the Standard Chartered Bank Annual Global Markets client conference, which was held in Goa this year. "This conference in the past focussed largely on financial market issues. However given the most topical issue being India @ 60 we decided to celebrate the India story this year. Having been in the country for 150 years our fortunes and those of our clients are inexplicably linked to the country story" says Mr. Hemant Mishr, Managing Director Global Markets , Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) India. The event was a mix of the eclectic and the erudite. On one hand you had veteran journalist and former union minister, Dr. Arun Shourie expounding on India's economic development while on the other hand Sir Mark Tully, a man who has chosen to make India his home, compared and contrasted the Indian approach to life from that of the western nations and even West Asian nations. And then there was the legendary Kapil Dev who gave a twist to the discussion when he spoke on the role of sports in creating a happy and prosperous nation. The event kicked off with a video that showcased the moments, which define the last sixty years of India's independence - the triumphant Kapil's team holding aloft the 1983 cricket World Cup, the economic reforms of 1991 which have helped India get where it is, the IT boom of late 90 and the telecom revolution. Mr. Sundeep Bhandari, Managing Director & Head of Global Markets for (SCB), South Asia then took centre stage. He combined his experiences as an Indian and as a global banker to illustrate the paradigm shift that has taken place in the Indian economy. To his mind nothing illustrated this better than the journey of the Indian rupee. "In the early 1990s when capital flows were liberalised, the predictability of the rupee was in one direction - depreciating against the dollar. Then during the early part of this decade we saw tremendous volatility in rupee. Today I see a step change in the rupee, it is consistently appreciating and there is expectation that rupee may appreciate significantly by 2010. For me this signifies paradigm change in India's financial market," said Mr. Bhandari. Mr. Bhandari went on to say that he felt privileged to be part of this incredible change happening in India: "From the days when there was a dearth of foreign capital, we have come to a stage, where a deluge of foreign money is waiting to come into India. The trend is very clear; we are living in an age of hyper growth." Having set the tone for the session, Mr. Bhandari then invited Dr. Arun Shourie, former union minister and Mr. Neeraj Swaroop, Chief Executive Officer of Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) India on to the stage. Mr. Shourie, who was also the guest of honour, then lit the ceremonial lamp. In his opening remarks, Mr. Swaroop said that those of us living in India in a sense tend to underestimate the excitement and interest that the Indian story has generated and is continuing to generate. "The world is spending a lot of time looking at India and trying to find out what's happening here. Those of us within the system don't realise the extent of change that is taking place. It is important to take stock of this change on platforms such as this one, because this is what will determine our future." He briefly dwelt upon the Bank's operations in India and its growing importance in SCB's global scheme of operations. Interestingly, SCB's first global bank opened in Kolkata in 1858. Today the Indian operations contribute nearly 16% of the Bank's global revenues, making India one of its largest markets.

The day however belonged to Dr. Shourie, a man who has worn many hats. An erudite speaker, Dr. Shourie took the audience on a journey of India's economic development through the last 60 years and also articulated the concerns that need to be addressed as we move ahead. He said that India's growth has been backed by a marked improvement in the competitiveness of Indian industry and faster export growth. He pointed out that the Indian economy has come a long way from the period of the 'Hindu rate of growth' in the 1960s and 70s to the hyper growth phase we are living today. In order to make growth sustainable he argued that it would be imperative for the corporate India to provide thought leadership. He also cautioned against being too insular. He asked the audience to study socio-economic changes in our neighbourhood and major countries so that we are prepared to face the opportunities and challenges of the future. "Do we know for example that while India is facing population explosion, Europe is struggling with declining population, or that Mohammed is now the third most popular name of a boy child in Europe? We can't ignore these changes as they will define future," said Dr. Shourie. He also requested the business community to be more alive to the challenges of climate change and the depletion of natural resources especially hydrocarbons. "Disowning the responsibility of environmental degradation will only postpone the problem. India and China must take responsibility of environment," said Dr. Shourie. The pressing need he said is for Indians to challenge conventional wisdom and look for new solutions. "Will a Rs. 1 lakh car really solve India's transport problems?" Other issues that he believed which needed to be dealt with included the quality of governance and the urgent need for reforms in the pension and social security system. While most speakers would have found Dr. Shourie a tough act to follow, it was a testimony to the stellar line up of speakers, that the man who followed Dr. Shourie had an equally formidable reputation. And that was Sir Mark Tully. No body knows the soul of India better than Sir Mark given that he served as the BBC India chief for over 30 years travelling to the farthest corners of India reporting on events and issues and meeting vast spectrum of Indians. He has also authored nearly half a dozen books on India. Speaking on the theme of progress and its pitfalls he cautioned the audience about trying to paint India with the common brush of globalisation. "It's true that we live in a globalised world and events in faraway places affect India. However I must say that India is incredible because it's different; imported or transplanted solutions don't work here." He illustrated this by contrasting Indian culture and value system with that of the European or West Asian cultures. "You think of Rome, you think of Athens or Cairo, you think of very ancient cities. But these are the cities, which have broken their links with the past. In contrast when you think about an Indian city like Varanasi you think of a city whose link with the past still survives," said Sir Mark. He said that the strength and adaptability of Indian culture sets it apart from other ancient cultures, all of which have disappeared. According to him Indian culture survived because of its flexibility, its adaptability and its openness to new cultures, new people and new ideas. "In contrast to Semitic religions, Indians have not been seduced by a search for certainty. Indians are always willing to accept uncertainty and change in best of times. This leads Indian to be flexible about their beliefs and follow a middle-path." Sir Mark's cerebral analysis was followed by a more analytical address by Mr. Bala Swaminathan, Head-CR, SCB South Asia. Mr. Swaminathan believed that while India was poised for greatness one of the key impediments was the lack of infrastructure. He pointed out that unless India as a nation took urgent and necessary steps to resolve the infrastructure issue, growth could slow down in the future. Said Mr. Swaminathan, "If the infrastructure spending takes off as planned it will lead to an acceleration in the GDP growth. In the past it has happened in US during the 1960s and in China in 90s and there is no reason to believe why it shouldn't happen in India." He was followed on to stage by a man speaks straight from his heart - Kapil Dev. This former Indian cricketer great gave the session a whole new twist by bringing the role of sport into the activity of nation building. He argued that though economic prosperity is important, entertainment and sports is equally crucial. "What's the use of wealth if you can't enjoy it or you don't have a healthy body? So buy a pair of sports shoes and hit the grounds. Healthy minds need an equally healthy and fit body," he said. It was a suggestion that found great acceptance within the audience. The speeches were followed by a panel discussion on Vision India: 30 years from now. Along with the main speakers, the panel had Mr. Rajiv Garg, CEO of JSW (US), participating in the discussions. The session was moderated by Mr. Hemant Mishr.

India needs quality leadership: Kalam

This will help reduce disparities and conflicts between the states thus helping in attaining non-linear growth, Kalam said in his address at the Fourth International Conference on Federalism here. "Working together is the need of the hour. The nation can work together on common issues for achieving sustainable growth," the former President said. "India has 28 states which are multi-religions, multi-lingual and multi-cultural...Hence the solution to the problem and development also should be region-based," he said and added region-based growth will give a fillip to growth and provide equal opportunities. A federal economy should aim at reducing the rural-urban divide while providing a prosperous and healthy future devoid of terrorism and having a sustainable growth, Kalam, who during his tenure as President had been advocating at Providing Urban amnities in Rural Areas (PURA), said. "We are a democratic billion people who need quality leadership," he said adding to succeed leaders require a shared vision for the nation, with an ability to take real time decisions, to travel along an unexplored path and nobility in management.

Baby, You Can Plug In My Car-India's electric car Reva sets the wheels in motion in climate-conscious UK

Where's my wire: A Reva charging point in London's Covent Garden area

Thrifty Lady
* No engine, only a motor. No fuel tanks, no exhaust, no emissions, and no noise.
* Drive 10 km every day for a year for the price of a single tank of petrol
* Speed 70 km an hour, range 80 km on a single charge from a normal socket for a
few hours. Charging stations introduced in central London.
* Parking free, and no congestion charge either in the UK. Savings on this alone
pays for the car in a year.
* Zero emissions; save the climate, and money
* Car service at your door
It's only a little longer than a longish stride and as silent as tip-toeing; it's a car without a conventional engine or fuel tank that so far only Bangalore and London really share.

A member of the Green Party can drive to a meeting where a parked G-Wiz will say what words can never.


G-Wiz: that's what the London distributors of the Bangalorean Reva car are calling it. And that's what an excited London media is exclaiming too. Just about every newspaper and TV channel here has been smitten by this little phenomenon on wheels.

With about 900 cars on London's roads, a fair bit more than the 650 in Bangalore, G-Wiz has claimed more attention than sales so far. But this is a breakthrough car; the first car to run on batteries that works in an everyday kind of way. At 70 km an hour, it is fast enough for city driving, and with an 80 km range on a single charge of a few hours in an ordinary electric socket, it gets far enough for ordinary use. It's cheap to use; you can run it for a year averaging 10 km a day for the price of a single tank of petrol. At £7,000 (Rs 5.7 lakh), the cost is not as little as you'd like. But count in the savings, and that price can drop pretty fast.

And the price could come down. "The cars are imported from Bangalore, which means we pay import duty of 6.5 per cent, and VAT 17.5 per cent," says Keith Johnston, MD of GoinGreen, the car's London distribution company. "We're really looking for a signal from the government to cut taxes and to offer incentives for imports, in order to bring down the price further." The car does need more than 900 owners.

So, who are these 900? "They are environmentally aware, well-educated and reasonably affluent," says Johnston. "Age-wise, they are across the board, but it's mostly the middle-aged urban professional." The zero emission from the car itself answers a rapidly louder call across Europe for cutting carbon emissions from car exhausts. An industrially induced rise in carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere is thought to contribute to global warming, precipitating unwanted climate change. That makes G-Wiz perfect for a globalising conscience of the green-minded.

You'd like to think you're driving from point A to B without a speck of a glacier melting along the way. But, of course, the glacier will not remain untouched if power to the point you plug the car into has come from a power plant burning oil or coal, and therefore sending off those warming emissions. But, at least the owner is not twice the sinner. In the ideal world, power to that plug point would come from a solar panel or a wind turbine. That's when a member of the Green Party can drive to a meeting where a G-Wiz parked outside will say what words can never.

Right now the London G-Wiz driver is not doing that much to cool the allegedly warming world; it would be nasty to point out that these 900 cars, even with their Bangalore population added on, is just a minuscule fraction of the 700 million cars worldwide. But what does work, here and now, is "the saving of those other emissions from the pocket", quips Johnston.

London is peculiarly placed to cut these emissions.

Parking in central London, otherwise prohibitively priced at up to six pounds an hour, is free for G-Wiz. That could mean a saving of 20 pounds a day or more on just parking in central London. Save also the eight pounds a day congestion charge slapped on those polluting cars for driving into London. "You could save up to £600 a month on this car, in a year it will pay for itself," says Johnston.

So this, more than its 'greenery', is the car's big selling point. Well, it's certainly true for Rachel, inspecting the cars at the distribution centre in Southall. Rachel is less worried about capsizing island countries (because warming atmosphere melts glaciers and so sea levels are rising, they say) than her bills. She runs a small courier company in Hounslow, located to collect packets from nearby Heathrow. For distribution in central London, she thinks her usual petrol-driven car can take her packets up to Hammersmith just outside central London. Then on, a G-Wiz could take over, with enough room on the left seat, and with the back seat flattened to make room for parcels. This can bring substantial savings that, she says, she can pass on to clients, consequently making herself more competitive.

But the car can mean savings to just anyone. Just plug it in as you would a toaster, and away you go in a couple of hours, with 80 per cent charged. The remaining 20 per cent takes more than twice as long, for reasons that batteries know best. So it's not the car in which you'd want to explore the highlands and islands of Scotland. It's the car for local hopping. In time, people will get used to G-Wiz workers who need a power point, and guests who drop in and plug in.

But on the other side, London's eccentricities are not an unmixed blessing. The car needs off-street parking simply so a normal electricity cable can be plugged into the battery. Running an electric cable across pavement space into the car is not exactly illegal, but if someone were to trip over it and fall, you could lose a lot more than the car can save you.

Now Westminster council in central London has begun to put up power points where the batteries can be charged as you park. That should make even a longish ride into central London possible. The problem is to make that mental leap from the idea of a 'proper' car to riding a trail-blazing insect. But even conventional car manufacturers now see Reva as a sign of times to come. The ceos of Nissan and Renault have just said that the future is electric. And not hybrid either, where you might mix the two; doing both is expensive, among other things. By 2012, many conventional car makers are planning to launch purely electric cars.

Reva, with its English cousin G-Wiz, is gearing up for the new competition. The insect has already metamorphosed swiftly from DC current to more efficient and powerful AC usage. Its older drive system is being changed to make the car a good deal nippier. A new generation of lithium-ion batteries will be introduced in 2008 to make charging quicker, and last longer. Software is not all that Bangalore has to show to the world.

Chetan Maini, chief technology officer of Reva Electric Car Company, got the idea of the green car from his days at the University of Michigan, US, in the 1990s. He teamed up with Dr Lon Bell from California to work out manufacturing in India. "The styling and engineering was done jointly by a team in the US and in India," Maini says. Distribution centres have now been set up in Norway and Spain, and others are planned in Cyprus, Greece and Ireland.

It's all on low budget. Reva sells in London without a showroom, without an advertising or marketing budget.There are no car salesmen; existing users offer to take new customers on a test drive. You buy online, servicing comes to your door. "Our showroom is the streets of London," says Johnston.

That means that with the distribution centre located in Southall, no one gets to see the car more than Southall Sikhs—and nobody seems less interested. There has been only one inquiry from Southall so far, and that didn't lead to a sale. "It's a bit odd, isn't it?," says Johnston. But then he doesn't understand Sikhs. The car is environment-friendly, not sardar-friendly. As seen by Southall's Sikhs, G-Wiz suffers a continuing problem: it never will be a vaddi gaddi

Indian girl separated from twin

BANGALORE, India (AP) - An extensive operation on a 2-year-old girl born with four arms and four legs went ``wonderfully well'' doctors said Wednesday as they announced that she was safe and stable after more than 24 hours of surgery.

A team of 30 doctors successfully removed the child's extra limbs, salvaged her organs, and rebuilt her pelvis area, Dr. Sharan Patil said Wednesday from a Bangalore hospital.

``Beyond our expectations, the reconstruction worked wonderfully well,'' Patil said.

The girl, named Lakshmi, had been revered by some in her village as the reincarnation of a Hindu goddess.

Lakshmi was born joined to a ``parasitic twin'' that stopped developing in the mother's womb. The surviving fetus absorbed the limbs, kidneys and other body parts of the undeveloped fetus.

The doctors worked through the night to remove the extra limbs and organs, surgery that doctors say will give her a good chance to live past adolescence. The procedure included separating the fused spines along with removing the extra limbs and the rest of the ``parasite,'' said Patil, the orthopedic surgeon leading the operation.

Children born with deformities in deeply traditional rural parts of India, like the remote village in the northern state of Bihar that Lakshmi hails from, are often viewed as reincarnated gods. The young girl is no different - she is named after the four-armed Hindu goddess of wealth

``Everybody considers her a goddess at our village,'' said her father, Shambhu, who goes by one name. ``All this expenditure has happened to make her normal. So far, everything is fine.''

Two Indians are now global ‘environmental heroes’

Tulsi Tanti of Suzlon Energy and DP Dobhal of Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology are awarded the title by Time magazine

NEW DELHI: Two Indians have made it to Time magazine’s global ‘Environment Heroes’ list. Tulsi Tanti, chairman of wind power firm Suzlon Energy and DP Dobhal of Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology will now rub shoulders with other prominent names like Nobel Peace Prize winner and former US Vice-President Al Gore, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Prince Charles and former Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev.

Tanti, chairman of Suzlon Energy, the fourth largest wind turbine maker in the world, has been named one of the ‘moguls and entrepreneurs’, while Dobhal, a glaciologist, is part of the scientists and innovators category.

“The environment isn’t bound by borders on the map and neither are our heroes. So we selected candidates from developed countries, where environmentalism has had time to take root, and from developing nations, where tomorrow’s green battles will be fought,” the magazine said in the cover story of its latest Asia edition.

Quoting Tanti, who is convinced that wind energy will emerge as the energy of the future, and that his company will help launch it into the market, the magazine says, “... green business is good business. But it’s not just about making money. It is about being responsible also.”

Incidentally, Tanti switched to wind energy when he had to buy two turbines to meet the energy needs of his textile company in the late 90s. Upon reading a report that some of his favourite destinations would be affected by carbon emissions and that islands like Maldives would be underwater by 2050, Tanti had a vision.

“If Indians start consuming power like the Americans, the world will run out of resources. Either you stop India from developing, or you find some alternate solution,” Tanti is quoted as saying. In 2001, Suzlon sold off its textile manufacturing firm and entered into the field of wind turbine generators.

The other hero, Dobhal, 45, works for the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, one of the few organisations studying high-altitude Himalayan glaciers. “Glaciers are very sensitive to climate change. Their state indicates or helps diagnose the state of surroundings,” says Dobhal. Interestingly, Dobhal makes use of bamboo sticks to measure the rise and fall of glacial mass.

His work is all the more important since Himalayan glaciers have been studied by lesser number of scientists than those who do glaciers in Alps, the Rockies and the Arctic, points out the report.

Diwali-Festival of Lights and crackers

Why is Diwali celebrated?"

Indians celebrate Diwali with great passion. They fire lots of firecrackers and eat sweets and wear new clothes. Why is Diwali so important in India? Diwali is the day when it is said that Lord Rama returned to his kingdom Ayodhya after conquering Lanka. Lord Rama was asked by his father Dashrath to go to the wild forests for fourteen long years. In the forest Ravana, the king of Lanka, abducted his queen Seeta. Lord Rama was along in the jungle with only his brother Laxaman with him. In the forests Lord Rama met the monkey king Sugriva. Sugriva sent monkeys around the world to search for mother Seeta. Finally Lord Hanumana found Seeta in the kingdom of Ravana at Lanka. He burnt Lanka and came back to inform Lord Rama about mother Seeta. Lord prepared a large army of monkeys and bears and invaded Lanka. Ravana was defeated. Vibhishan the brother of Ravana had joined Lord Rama in the battle. After defeating Ravana Lord Rama returned to Ayodhya his kingdom after fourteen long years. Indian Hindus celebrate Diwali as a day of celebration. Candles are burnt in every home. People clean their homes and wear new clothes. Sweets are shared and people wish each other. Diwali is the biggest festival of India that celebrates the victory of good over the evil. Indians all over the world celebrate Diwali and it is also the beginning of new year as per the Hindu calendar.

"How Diwali is Celebrated ?"

This festival is celebrated on a grand scale in almost all the regions of India and is looked upon mainly as the beginning of New Year. As such the blessings of Lakshmi, the celestial consort of Lord Vishnu are invoked with prayers. Even countries like Kenya, Thailand, Trinidad, Siam and Malaya celebrate this festival but in their own ways. This Diwali festival, it is surmised dates back to that period when perhaps history was not written, and in its progress through centuries it lighted path of thousands to attain the ultimate good and complete ecstasy. Diwali or more aptly Deepavali is very enthusiastically celebrated for five continuous days and each day has its significance with a number of myths, legends and beliefs. The First day is called DHANTERAS or DHANTRAYODASHI which falls on the thirteenth day of the month of Kartik. The word "Dhan" means wealth. As such this day of the five-day Diwali festival has a great importance for the rich mercantile community of Western India. Houses and Business premises are renovated and decorated. Entrances are made colourful with lovely traditional motifs of Rangoli designs to welcome the Goddess of wealth and prosperity. To indicate her long-awaited arrival, small footprints are drawn with rice flour and vermilion powder all over the houses. Lamps are kept burning all through the nights. Believing this day to be auspicious women purchase some gold or silver or at least one or two new utensils. "Lakshmi-Puja" is performed in the evenings when tiny diyas of clay are lighted to drive away the shadows of evil spirits. "Bhajans"-devotional songs- in praise of Goddess Laxmi are sung and "Naivedya" of traditional sweets is offered to the Goddess. There is a peculiar custom in Maharashtra to lightly pound dry coriander seeds with jaggery and offer as Naivedya. In villages cattles are adorned and worshipped by farmers as they form the main source of their income. In south cows are offered special veneration as they are supposed to be the incarnation of Goddess Lakshmi and therefore they are adorned and worshipped on this day.

Pre-owned car industry to get a boom in India

What you say about used? How will it be if you buy a used Mitsubishi Lancer or a used FordIcon and alter it with sporty designs? Will it look sporty if you put a nice spoiler on the rear of your car and cut short the ground clearance? Go Vroom. The Indian youth needs more designs rather than the usual black or white or red. It’s time to get your dream cars in India’s used car market at an affordable price. The global auto majors are looking for potential buyers of their vehicles in India’s used car market

India’s used car market has had a lone voyager inMaruti and its TrueValue program. Now, Honda’s Auto Terrace, Toyota You Trust brand,Hyundai’s Hyundai Advantage, and Ford's Ford Assured used car programs have entered the Indian car market. Statistics say that the used-car market counts for one million units across India. This industry is expected to grow bigger faster than in past years.

Here is the current scenario of the pre-owned cars industry in India. Toyota’s You Trust venture is all set to roll out at leading dealerships across the country by October end 2007. Honda is ready with their new team trained to focus only on its used-car program called Auto Terrace. The company’s used-car program is currently running in a small way and is expected to be a success soon. Ford Assurance and Hyundai Advantage programs are also doing competitively well in the industry. Last, but definitely not the least, our car guruMarutiis at the top with more than 90,000 used cars units sold through its True Value network.

China praises India for Dalai censure

China on Tuesday praised the UPA government for asking its ministers to stay away from a recent function to felicitate Buddhist spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, whom it accused of trying to ''split China''.

Though being a religious leader, the Dalai Lama is involved in politics, China's Ambassador to India Sun Yuxi told reporters in New Delhi.

''I greatly appreciate the move by the Indian government,'' he said when asked to comment on the recent advisory of Cabinet Secretary K M Chandrasekhar asking union ministers to stay away from a function to honour the Dalai Lama.

''He (the Dalai Lama) is trying to separate and split China,'' Sun said on the sidelines of a function organised by the Federation of Indian Exporters Organisations.

The Cabinet Secretary had issued a circular, advising ministers not to attend the function on Saturday.

The Tibetan spiritual leader had returned from a visit to the US where he received the highest civilian award bestowed by the US Congress, much to the chagrin of China.

Indian American becomes Univ Chancellor

Fifty-two-year old Renu Khator, landed in the United States as a young bride some 34 years ago from a small town of Farrukhabad in Uttar Pradesh. On Monday, she was appointed Chancellor of a major American university with more than 56,000 students on its rolls. With this, Khator has become the first Indian-American to have been appointed as head of a major US university - a remarkable achievement for someone who came to this country with a simple Bachelor's degree from a small time college in Farrukhabad affiliated to the Kanpur University. The University Of Houston Board Of Regents following its meeting announced Khator not only as President of the University of Houston, but also Chancellor of University of Houston Systems. This implies that Khator, who as of now is provost of the University of South Florida, would be administrative head of four universities in Houston, which has a combined students' strength of more than 56,000. University of Houston is a system of four universities, with three smaller universities and one large main university. Khator has been made the President of the main big campus. All the four presidents report to the Chancellor of the University of Houston system. Khator was selected as the Chancellor as well. In fact, she would be the eighth Chancellor and 13th President. ''It is a phenomenal university in this great city of Houston. I need to take it to next level of excellence,'' Khator told NDTV.com, hours after her selection. She would formally take office from the current incumbent Jay Gogue in January 2008. Khator, who besides her normal administrative and academics works teaches Hindi in the University of South Florida, attributed her success in the US academics to the Indian value system and the education she had back home. ''I think, I brought right values with me from India. More than Indian education, I think it is the Indian value system; it is ethics of hard work, ethics of working as a team living in expanded family in India teaches us the value of valuing everybody's opinion as you move forward. All this has played a very critical role in my administration and leadership success,'' said Khator. Making ''research and education with a global edge'' her top two priorities as the head of the University of Houston, Khator said: ''The University has a strategic plan and a vision. The vision is to become a national premier research university -- become a tier one university. This is what I have to do -- to look at more creativity and innovation and another is to make sure that the university can provide access to students and when they come to the university, they can be successful.'' ''In order to accomplish those, I have to look at the resources of the university, which means that I would have to do a lot of private fund raising,'' she added. Later in the evening Khator was given a grand welcome by the University. ''We have found an incredible person to lead this University and this system into 21st century,'' said Welcome W Wilson Sr, Chairman, University of Houston Board Of Regents in his address. Khator was appointed Provost and Senior Vice President at the University of South Florida 2003

Fashion Designer Tarun Tahiliani

Tarun Tahiliani is a Bollywood celebrity costume designer, who has designed apparels for the Indian celebrity beauties like Simi Garewal and Ramola Bachchan. He has always been in limelight. For quite a long time, this Indian fashion designer Tarun Tahiliani had become the talk of town because of Jemima Khan's wedding wardrobe contract. He started off as a fashion retailer by establishing his own fashion boutique in Mumbai. Later on he made a step further starting his own brand label called ', Ahilian'

Extremely inspired by ethnic styles, fashion designer Tarun Tahiliani is of the opinion that Sari is the most elegant dress that has a great dazzling effect. He thinks it is the most apt apparel for sensuous look and brings out the beauty of India women in the most attractive manner. He experiments with colors and fabrics and comes up with his own unique classy designs. According to him Sari has the capability of arousing sensation.

He is simply fascinated by Chikan embroidery of Lucknow and is often incorporated in his designs. He also makes use of beads and semi precious stones to embellish the ensemble. He strongly believes that fashion is all about your comfort level with a particular attire. The highlights of his designs are: block printing, bandhini styles, beautiful color combination and rich silhouettes. He is unique in designing and this is what sets him apart in the list of fashion designers.

Fashion Designer Manish Malhotra

Fashion designer Manish Malhotra, a passionate fashion savvy has made his special position in the Indian film Industry. He has beautified the Indian film star celebrities with his impeccable designer outfits. Indian designer Manish Malhotra entered into the Bollywood parlance by designing wardrobe for Juhi Chawla. In the list of top young celebrity fashion designers, he is the most shining star who has been successful in earning both name and fame

He knows his job pretty well and has a complete understanding as to what style would go perfect. He has designed costumes for almost all top actresses from sensuous Sridevi, Urmila Matondkar, Shilpa Shetty, and Manisha Koirala to elegant and graceful Aishwarya Rai, Rani Mukherjee and Preity Zinta. He is specialized in women attire styles. Manish has made an incredible contribution to various Blockbuster light comedy films like Rangeela to romantic movies like Dil To Pagal Hai, Kaho Na Pyar Hai and Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge.

He is truly a master of fashion and has achieved a tremendous appreciation. His work has been honored with various awards like Filmfare Award, Showtime Opinion Poll Award, Siemen's Viewer's Choice Award, Bollywood Award and the Lux-Zee Cine Award. He is continuously delivering quality work for fashion boutique 'Reverie' with which he is associated since 1998. This budding star of yesterday has truly become the pride of Bollywood.

Fashion Designer Hemant Trivedi

In the list of top Indian fashion designer Hemant Trivedi is one who has made a special place for himself in the Indian fashion industry. He is one of the brightest and leading versatile designers. He pursued his graduation from the Australian Technical Institute of Fashion Design. Later on, he went to New York for further studies. It was in 1980 when he came down to India. This famous designer Hemant Trivedi from India has been serving the Mumbai's S.N.D.T University for quite a long time. In the present scenario, he is the pride of Sheetal, India's famous designer fashion store.






Fashion designer Hemant Trivedi's masterpiece creations have also made their way to beauty Pageants. He has made an incredible contribution in adorning the glamour of Indian beauty queens like Aishwarya Rai and Diana Hayden. His designer apparel designs are casting spell not just in India but driving people crazy in overseas too especially in U.K.and U.S.A. His aim has been to blast this fashion world with splendid designs, which are unique and classy.

His designs have not just given a boost to his career but have set the career path for the new upcoming models. He is a man of substance who is continuously delivering quality work to take Indian fashion industry to heights. He is acquired the commanding position of a trendsetter. This talented man has surely made us proud.