Book Review
Practical prescription
This is a book about the major preoccupation of nations today: globalisation, downsizing Government, free trade and movement of capital, etc. The main message is easy enough to identify. It is that market liberalisation, globalisation and economic restru
cturing is not the only option available to revitalise ailing economies; they are only means to an end and not the end in themselves. Repeatedly, therefore, the author asks us to be clear about what we are trying to achieve, and to adopt economic prescri
ptions with a sense of pragmatic realism, and not as dogma.
Group Dynamics for Teams
This brief, readable book explains the basic psychological concepts of group dynamics with a focus on their use in small groups. It is grounded in psychology but with a very practical focus on organisational behaviour issues and applications. A reading o
f the book would help improve people's knowledge of the group dynamics and work as teams more effectively.
Customer Equity
What's a customer worth? The company that can answer this question precisely is the company with an edge in the customer-based economy of today. This timely book provides a solution: a fully developed, highly practical new marketing system for measuring
and managing customer value as a financial asset -- a system uniquely suited to today's rapidly changing marketplace.
Patently unjust
Intellectual property as the new target of colonial hegemony through instruments such as the WTO and TRIPS with the US as the biggest perpetrator of monopolistic trade in human knowledge and life forms -- Nothing new, coming from the multifaceted Vandana
Shiva, but the story does not end there. Her latest book sets out in simple terms what it means to live under the new ``patents'' regime dominated by profiteering multinationals which will stop at nothing if it means making money.
Consumer Notes
Stop being pliant over plastic
It is quite normal these days to come across garbage heaps in streets with used plastic bags and bottles strewn all over the place. Plastic bags are, no doubt, convenient. But the problem lies with their disposal. Plastic bags, cups, plates, bottles, etc
are difficult to destroy. It takes, according to environmentalists, hundreds of years, if at all, for these plastic wastes to decompose.
Corporate
Plumping for part-time
It seems like the days when you plodded or whizzed (as the case may be) your way through school and college and then embarked on your career are over. It's no longer study or work but study and work.
Make the most of your meetings
Really participative meetings are the exception rather than the rule. Many meeting leaders feel that their meetings are going on stream, sticking to the agenda, are effectively involving everybody and addressing each participant's concerns, and that ever
ybody is on board and is just raring to get to work implementing the meeting's decisions.
Food & Dairy Products
Eat like a Mexican
Mexican cuisine has a robust quality that is all its own. The pristine and elegant interiors of the Oberoi, New Delhi, in no way diminished this quality of the cuisine. As they say it is all in the mind. While I introduce you to the various aspects of Me
xican dishes, I will also share a recipe with you, I came across at a festival of Mexican Cuisine at the Oberoi.
Miscellaneous
Tinkering with toys
Ten-year-old Pranab Pant is full of his latest plaything -- it is a troop carriage which, with a few deft twists, turns into an army camp. It also has a couple of soldier figures, who can be made to do a whole host of exciting things. The best thing abou
t the Mission Bravo toy, according to Pranab and his pals, among whom it is all the rage, is that it is a `convertible' -- that is, it starts off as one thing and can become something entirely different.
Gushing elegance
Jaquar's aspirations to provide dream bathrooms reach a new high when you cast your eyes on its products. The company says it has set benchmarks in bath fittings with its repertoire of product ranges from conventional to quarter fittings to single mixers
in various designs and colours. A leader in bath fittings, its name Jaquar is derived from the earthy, Indian, Jai Kaur -- the name of the company director's grandmother.
Technology
Brush with the future
Remember `Future Shock', the book that became a talking point in the 1970s? Well, its author, Alvin Toffler, who followed up with best-sellers such as `Powershift' and `The Third Wave' is in India this month as the keynote speaker for Xerox's learning in
itiative, DocuWorld India 2001.
Travel & Places
Veiled in tranquility
The majestic Himalayas offers a wide array of picturesque places, with rivers running down amid deep gorges and high mountains, but the Kullu valley has its own unmatched charm. Lavishly bestowed with beauty, Kullu is often referred to as the Land of God
s. Manikaran is a little town in this serene setting, and is called the heart of this land.
Hong Kong turns on the charm
In July 1997, the world watched as the British handed Hong Kong back to the Chinese in a historic ceremony. Since then, this hub of Asia has kept a savvy eye on the world, wooing travellers, business and foreign investment, and claims to be the world's m
ost service-oriented economy.
Tourist tastebuds
Here is a great foody idea from Hong Kong that could be replicated in India during the peak tourist season. Considering the variety of food our country has to offer, a campaign such as this one could do wonders for the tourists' tastebuds.
