Consumer Notes
Justice delayed
Recently, a magazine brought out some unpleasant truths about the judicial system in our country. According to the article, it would take 280 years to dispose of all the cases currently pending in the various courts. Can anything be more shameful?
Corporate
Body, mind and, now, soul
In the early part of the 20th century, IQ became a big issue, the measuring of our `intelligence quotient'. In the mid-1990s, Daniel Goleman took the research of neuroscientists and psychologists and popularised the notion of another quotient -- EQ, emot
ional intelligence. Now, a third wave of scientific research suggesting we may be `hard wired', neurologically, for spirituality has prompted the creation of SQ, the spirituality quotient. What we are examining here is an integrated framework linking IQ,
EQ and SQ.
Gift a holiday
The festive season is on. With Diwali just over and Christmas and New Year round the corner, corporates are busy focussing on how to package their products as gifts. So you have food hampers, table lamps, household ware, silverware, crystalware .... all
gaily packed and ribboned into a neat little present.
Bring out the silver
Ravissant, the house of haute couture, recently unveiled its Illusion 2000 sterling-silver collection as a tribute to the new millennium. Although the collection features myriad items, the theme is cohesive, incorporating elements of Indian religion and
Mughal and Indian architecture. The designs speak of innovation and the end-products show skilled craftsmanship.
Wheeling ahead of competition
With the World Trade Organisation (WTO) agreement in place, the 50-year-old Indian cycle industry with an estimated annual turnover of Rs 10,000 crore is facing global competition.
Information Technology
And now dot-toons
One thing is for certain -- dotcoms are in no dearth of ideas. Here's one that has started the country's first cartoon channel and had it launched last week by none other than the creative-thinking guru, Edward de Bono.
Management
The long road to success
``Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?'' asked Alice.
Miscellaneous
On a scale of 1 to 10
How many different ways can there be to say essentially the same thing? You can say `Lock kiya jaye?', but then, Amitabh Bachchan already has a monopoly on that. You can ask `Sure?' but then, Bachchan got that one too. You can say, 'Confident?', but gues
s what ...
Prescription for health
In the write-up, `Fool-proof pharmacy' (Sept 18), the author asks why despite a plethora of laws, drugs continue to be sold over the counter without a prescription. In fact, drugs such as crocin are available even in paan-shops.
Technology
Innovation, down to earth
Despite all the scientific and technological advancements, artisans living in rural areas continue to use age-old traditional equipment. Millions of craftspersons living in villages and towns still rely on slow, hand-driven tools as they cannot afford an
y of the modern tools. This led 30-year-old Wahid Khan Pathan, a semi-literate artisan belonging to Khategaon in Dewas district, Madhya Pradesh, to invent an electricity-driven potters' wheel.
Travel & Places
Sands of timelessness
This holiday we wished for something new, something different. And that made Rajasthan a natural choice. Then someone suggested Bikaner. The name itself reminded us of the mouth-watering Bikaneri `bhujia' and `rasgullas'. We had, literally, a foretaste o
f things to come.
Where sky is the limit
Mystical and romantic, the islands of Japan have lured travellers for centuries.
