Cover Story
- Amit Tripathi, 35, had a passion for music as a young man and is still ready to sing if there is someone to listen. Ashwani Kumar, 41, on the other hand, likes to travel abroad and harbours a secret desire to explore every nook and corner of the world.
- Given that Indian markets had gone through a boom-and- bust cycle in the past three years, find out how India's mutual fund pros manage your money - and deliver the goodies.
- Soft spoken and calm. These are the two characteristics that best describe Apoorva Shah.
- Meet Prashant Jain, the 42-yearold Chief Investment Officer with HDFC Mutual Fund. Jain keeps it simple and adheres to the golden rules of investing.
- He is fanatical about waking up at 5:30 a.m. and hitting either the gym or the jogging track.
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- He loves squash. Half an hour of the strenuous game every day relaxes the 35-year-old Anand Shah, Canara Robeco Asset Management Company's Head of Equities, and fund manager for Canara Robeco Infrastructure Fund.
- He is a Bollywood buff and loves to watch films. He brings the same keenness to his job as a fund manager.
- Arpit Malaviya has been a sportsman - he represented Rajasthan in sub-junior hockey - and is not daunted by a punishing schedule that begins well before daybreak.
- Ritesh Jain is an avid half-marathoner. But the 35-year-old Head of Fixed Income and fund manager with Canara Robeco seems to prefer the 100-metre dash as a touchstone for his investment philosophy.
- If you thought fund managers were stodgy, obsessed with number crunching and poring through balance sheets, think again!
- An adventure sports enthusiast, speed thrills Devesh Thacker. Supersonic jets, he says, fascinate him. Well, in his profession, too, Thacker has lived life in the fast lane.
From the Editor
Have you heard the story about Warren Buffett, the 215 millionaires, and the coin-flipping orangutans? It takes some telling and you will have to buy a biography of the Sage of Omaha to read it. My stuff
Jean-Frederic Dufour, CEO, Zenith The knotty affair between a man and his tie started way back in the 17th century. Since then, men have collared their way to sartorial elegance with the help of the natty necktie. We take a look at the evolution of ties over time. A bread bar with an excellent wine cellar and a great Pan Indian restaurant to boot, Baluchi celebrates the diverse flavours of India in its own unique style. Whether you're a serious collector or not, it pays to know your way around the world of furniture. There are some simple, but golden, rules that you should follow when assessing antiques. Irrespective of whether you're buying at auction or from a dealer, the same watchwords apply: provenance, condition and rarity. Fast cars, bikes and boats. Racing tidbits from around the world. Madonna and Tom Cruise swear by it. So do a whole lot of healthy people around the world. For macrobiotics is not the latest hot diet fad, but a fundamental way of eating sensibly. Learn how to do daily things on your own. Often called the most beautiful sea voyage in the world, the Hurtigruten cruise lets you explore the fjords, the fishing villages and the food of Norway. It's about private passions in public spaces. As top restaurants entice epicureans with an intimate gourmet experience-the reclusively exclusive private dining room-we pick the hosts with the most. Check the desirability quotient
Call me the breeze
If you're looking for the quintessential Harley-Davidson experience, the Super Glide Custom from the Dyna family is the motorcycle to have. Readers' forum
Fortune in Farms Betting on Farms (BT cover, August 8) points to the shift in agriculture.
Burning the candle at both ends
It's time to get a grip on when your workday begins and when it ends, especially if you keep erratic hours. Here is a take on people, places and products doing the round these days.Leaderspeak with N. Srinivasan
Here is a small Q&A with N. Srinivasan, Vice Chairman and MD, India Cements A creative mind on social issues
Out of the four volumes that are now available, this is the one that will be of most interest to the non-economist, says Bibek Debroy.
A new benchmark for lending
The new base rate will make lending more transparent, but it is unlikely to change the interest rates for borrowers immediately and will benefit them only in the long term. Dentsu's expanding girth
He's the man the ad world loves to hate but Sandeep Goyal knows how to grab attention. India becomes a hot market for optional vaccines. A small set of hotel chains shows that eco-friendly practices help boost profits, not just a caring image. Mumbai as an IFC? Think Again!
Our governance systems are the relics of an era long abandoned - something I call "Sovietism". We are littered with 'para-stratal' organisations and undemocratic practices. Living in a pipe dream
Mumbai is the country's commercial capital, but for the city to become an international fulcrum for finance will take a lot of doing. You can buy into quality stocks and work for quality corporations in Mumbai, but what you can't get for love or money is quality of life. There's nothing wrong in aspiring to be a London or a New York, but Mumbai should first try to get close to a Dubai or a Beijing.
Can you spot the retail investor?
Companies and institutions dwarf retail investors in the Indian mutual funds arena and there's unlikely to be a trend reversal soon. Rebooting Inflation
To better capture the price swings in the economy, the government will soon migrate to a new index to measure inflation. Infosys co-founder and chief software architect N.R. Narayana Murthy has given his backing to the ascension of S.D. Shibulal, the current Chief Operating Officer and a co-founder, to the CEO's job sometime in the middle of next year. Blimps are the latest addition to sporting events in India. The IPL contests featured blimps; the Commonwealth Games is getting a similar showpiece equipped with cameras and lights. So, how do these fish objects fly? "We want to focus on user experience"
Prabhakar Raghavan, Senior Vice President, Chief Scientist and Head of Yahoo! Labs, was in Bangalore in late July.
The cashless insurance row
The spat between public sector insurers and big hospital chains has serious implications for over 30 million policyholders. 
