Rove ahead Tata




Bankrupt British carmaker MG Rover is looking out for suitors after the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp. (SAIC) deserted the company.

Probably Tata Motors, which does not hide its global aspiration, could commence the due diligence on the last remaining 'truly British' car brand.

Tata tea did pull off the Tetley buyout relatively unscathed and today promotes the world's second largest tea brand, after Unilever. On a similar tack, Ratan Tata could just extend Tata Motors acquisition spree, that transcends Korea and Spain now, to Britain.

Rover will come laden with debt no doubt, but it is a strong brand and given the Tata's disciplined approach and existing links with MG Rover through the Indica deal, the deal looks succelent.

Also, Tata's could draw a leaf out of Lakshmi Mittal's (Mittal Steels) books and bring in bankrupt but potential winners into their fold.

Amby superbrand.



(Ambassador - the first car to be manufactured in India. )

We can change the way an Ambassador looks, but then it will no longer be an Amby. This was amby maker Hindustan Motors one time punch line.

HM is one of the few car makers that refuses to let a great brand die. Ford persists with its Mustang, while GM has its sixth generation Corvette on the roads now. Merc for its part is always inspired by its SLK’s, while Rolls Royce aspires for a better Phantom constantly.

But there ends Amby similarity with the world beater brands. The likes of Phantoms and Corvettes while drawing styling ideas from the originals, have evolved technologically in each avatar. For the Amby the answer is written all over the wall.

If HM too can wake up, add life to the Amby brand-- instead of squeezing its last sinews--by styling it in tune with today's curves (pun not intended) and by tweaking the Isuzu power unit, then Amby and HM do have the right ingredients for the second drive.

C’mon CK Birla (HM belongs to the CK Birla Group) reach out to the die hard Amby enthusiasts.
If the most stoic automaker in the country Premier Auto can dream of a change, you well can!

Blowing a big opportunity?

The Economist as usual sets you thinking. Renewable energy could well add a few years of life to mother earth, but the firms that ar promoting it are already facing the rough winds.

A Danish firm leads the wind-turbine world. Yet it lost money last year .

You would think it hard to be the world leader in an industry roaring ahead with government backing and subsidised customers—and still to lose money. Yet Vestas Wind Systems, a Danish wind-turbine maker, did that last year. It is a cautionary tale—and not just for Vestas.
Pushed by fears of global warming and by rising energy prices, wind power is on a roll: worldwide, installed capacity rose by some 8,000MW last year, to nearly 48,000MW, one-third of that in Germany. Of that new 8,000MW, Vestas, with 26 years in wind turbines and over 26,000 of them installed, put in 35%. It has 9,500 employees, and a turnover, aided last year by the takeover of its closest Danish rival, of euro2.6 billion ($3.2 billion then), double the figure in 2001. Yet from euro390m pre-tax profit in that year it slid into two years of tiny profits and then, in 2004, into a euro50m loss.

BCCI Cricket channel

The Board of Cricket Control in India has announced gala plans to promote a cricket dedicated television.

Newspapers have spoken about the feasibility of the channel. No more on that, but one can be rest assured BCCI mentor or whatever fancy title he awards for himself Jag Mohan Dalmia and his cronies are going to slay the goose that lays the golden eggs.

Already the most corrupt sports body in the country, BCCI is set to scale new heights.

All the best Mr Dalmia.

The ninenties and later haven't been the best of years for sports car enthusiasts. One by one, the nineties have seen the discontinuation of some of the world's fastest, performance-oriented, fun-to-drive cars.

Since 1995 alone, we've lost the Toyota MR2, Nissan 300ZX, Mazda RX-7, and Dodge Stealth. Even America's favorite home-grown sports car, the Chevrolet Corvette, had an uncertain future during the middle of this decade.

Naukri

Have been attending interviews, not for me but with my wife. She being new to the city, needs a chauffer to steer her to the right place at the right time beating the chaotic traffic.

After dropping her at the spot, I hang around either Window shopping or posting myself just outside the entrance of the firm where she is answering some smart assed questions.

Get to see quite a lot of freshers walking in and out of the building. The numbers are quite high as she plans to be a HR executive and HR firms attract aspirants willing to grab a seat at that firm, and a lot more gunning for positions at the firm’s clients.

While I send in and see out a varied lot, I’m treated with the latest in fashion, dress sense of people, confidence levels ranging from high to meek. But a striking similarity over ruled all of these.

The eyes betrayed any education background or confidence. Expectancy, curiosity and eagerness were wrought all over the eyes when they went in. As for pair of eyes that trooped out, it was either a cheeky wide smiling pair or stares directed at the floor (The latter outnumbering the first.)

To see more of the cheeky smiles, let’s pray for long winding service industry.

NDTV 'Profits' from CNBC TV18

The recently launched biz channel of NDTV, NDTV Profit is a mirror image of CNBC TV 18. Quite literally, while CNBC TV 18 is left aligned (most of the time) NDTV Profit is right aligned.

Profit's screen shade resemble the CNBC blue, the stock ticker format and colours are the same and lastly the image window during trading hours is the same size too. Some thing to crib about originality or lifting-- plagiarism in journalistic terms.

The reason is quite simple. Gossip with ex CNBC TV 18 employees revealed that a bunch of the people who run NDTV Profit are from CNBC TV 18.

Another trivia on the same subject. Headlines Today, it is said, is a close take of CNBC SAW (South Asia World)

yagoohoogle.com

http://yagoohoogle.com/. This is an interesting search engine. Use it to get search results from Yahoo and Google.

The screen is split into two vertical halves, with one half throwing out Yahoo search engine results and the other Google's.

Hey on hindsight, is it legal?

Gully Cricket

Played cricket the way i had wanted to, for sometime now. Far away from the confines of my parent's huge garden or a proper ground, played in a dusty odd shaped tiny park along with four other colleagues.

The frills included a gutter on one side, quite a few cars and their windshields to contend with, irate house owners, plus two to three other kid's teams vying for space in the miniscule park.

We played like pros though, sending off two balls into the gutter. And one ingenious friend lured a kid into fishing out the ball from the green murky water with Rs five.

As for my form, it was vintage Ganguly.

Quiet Quotes

Picked (or stole) this quote from a signature line.

Quite liked it. It brings out the essence of life.

"Throw your dreams into space like a kite, and you do not know what it will bring back, a new life, a new friend, a new love, a new country." - Anais Nin, The Diaries of Anais Nin

Mr Sarkar, spare a thought for the reporters

Aveek Sarkar, Anand Bazar Patrika group (publishers of Business World,Telegraph) patriarch and now supposedly the largest shareholder in Star network in India, also founder Business Standard had this to say in the Business Standard's 30 years commemorative issue.

" I was baptised into a faith that recognised the primacy of the sub-editor. A reporter is no more than a Priya Trivedi or a Yana Gupta swirling into the limelight in somebody else’s clothes."

Probably Sarkar wanted romanticise his point and punch that extra effect to prove it, sadly it was in poor taste. One of the seniormost media barons, Sarkar sure has the knowledge and right to praise sub editors, but he certainly shouldn't rap poor reporters who too put in their fair share.

I vehemently oppose this particular view, do you?