• Narayana Murthy Voted Most Admired Business Leader
• Dwarka Under Sea! Now You Can See
• Sweden to Pay for Tagore's Stolen Nobel Replica
• Indian Tops UK Best Speller List
• Award for NGRI Scientist

• India Emerges as the New Hotspot in Global Tourism
• ISRO Chief to get Nayudamma Award
• Indian Beauty Industry - Going the Nature's Way
• TIFR Professor to get TWAS Award

It's an industry that has redefined resilience every time it has been hit. Having scaled the foreign exchange earnings by Rs 23,000 crore in 2004, and with domestic traffic to exceed 350 million, the Indian tourism sector has never looked this hot. The year 2005 could then well mark the tipping point for this industry which will not only help a hundred allied domestic sectors but also pull the axis of global attention to India. It was on this positive note that Travel World-2005 - an Indian Express Group Event - started its biggest business to business (B2B) exhibition on Thursday in Mumbai. The event will run seminars and exhibit services from the travel industry between February 24-27. ''India has plenty to show and keep a tourist happy. It's due to sheer lack of priority and initiative that we have been able to tap only 2 per cent of the global travel market. It's time that various organisations and groups took interest and promoted this industry,'' Chief Guest Dr Wilfred de Souza, deputy chief minister and tourism minister of Goa said. ''This event shoould mark the starting point for such initiatives and many other groups should follow step and get the world to come to India,'' he added. Talking about the consistent 7 per cent growth rate that the tourism industry has yielded over the last 50 years, Varma from WTO said, ''India's performance as a tourism destination has shown a radical metamorphosis. In 2004 India registered a growth of 23.5 per cent, compared with a tourist growth rate of 16 per cent in 2003. It still needs to go along way to achieve success, as its biggest competitor China has attracted around 42 million arrivals last year. This can happen only if there is a combined effort from the public and private sector along with good emphasis on infrastructure development.''

Courtesy: The Indian Express, February 25, 2005

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Infosys Chairman and Chief Mentor NR Narayana Murthy has emerged as India's most admired business leader for the fourth consecutive year, according to a survey by brand consulting, advertising and PR firm Brand-comm. Students from 12 management institutes across the country who participated in the survey admire Murthy for being a visionary that he is, and for his value systems, as per the survey findings released at a press conference here. The B-School students named Infosys and Tata firms as the two most attractive Indian companies to work for. HLL, which occupied the top rank last year, has slipped to the third place. Murthy, who was backed by 35 per cent of the students for the coveted slot, is ahead of Ratan Tata (16 per cent), Chairman of Tata Group, who occupies the second position in the list of most admired business leaders. Others mentioned in the survey include Sunil Mittal, Kumaramangalam Birla, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Vijay Mallya, Ram Dorai and Vivek Paul. According to the annual B-School study, both Infosys and Tata were chosen for providing the best work environment and world culture. Interestingly, this year consulting firms like McKinsey and Boston Consulting were the preferred choice of IIM students, it said. Tata/Tata Group was named the "most admired corporate brand with operations in India". The study revealed that a majority of the B-School students wished to become entrepreneurs rather than work for an organisation. Twelve business management schools, including five IIMs, participated in the study and a total of 309 final year B-School students responded to a self-filling questionnaire. The participating schools were IIMA, IIMB, IIMI, IIMK, IIMC, SP Jain-Mumbai, Amity Business School-Delhi, and Indian School of Business-Hyderabad, Rajgiri Management Institute-Kochi, BIM-Trichy, TAPMI-Manipal and SDM-IMD-Mysore.

Courtesy: Hindustan Times, February 24, 2005

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The Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Mr G. Madhavan Nair, has been selected for the prestigious Dr Y. Nayudamma Memorial Award for 2004. The award, instituted by the Tenali-based Dr Y. Nayudamma Memorial Trust, will be presented at a function in the coastal Andhra town to Mr Nair on March 9. It recognises his outstanding contribution to India's space research and satellite development programmes. Dr N. Jayaprakash Narayan, National Co-ordinator, Loksatta, will present the award. The ISRO Chairman would be the 13th recipient of the award.

Courtesy: www.thehindubusinessline.com, February 21, 2005

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The barren coastline of Gujarat could emerge as an exotic destination for global tourists, if initiatives by the government and a private firm to market a dive into the submerged ancient city of Dwarka are any sign. If all goes well, back-packers can head for Bet Dwarka this summer, go scuba-diving a hundred feet beneath the sea to explore Lord Krishna's swarna-nagri , which went under the sea thousands of years ago to be discovered only recently. And also, flirt with whale sharks, rub shoulders with sea turtles and even view live corals. Adventure Sports Ltd (ASL), a local firm that promotes adventure sports and tourism recently entered into a memorandum of understanding with the Gujarat government to kick off the project at a cost of Rs 13 crore. The company expects 3,000 to 4,000 certified divers as well as scuba diving enthusiasts from across the country to travel all the way to this temple town during mid-March and May end. "The potential for this kind of tourism is extremely high. There has been a paradigm shift in the attitude of travellers. In addition to experiencing 'something different', a class of tourists also wish to return home equipped with new skills," says Vishwas Bhamburkar, chief executive officer of ASL. Bhamburkar told The Economic Times that his firm is planning to offer a four-day package for a cool Rs 16,000. The Archeological Survey of India (ASI) recently established the presence of a city submerged under the sea near the temple town of Dwarka, for many years believed to be the abode of Lord Krishna. Excavators from the ASI have found remains of a citadel wall, crockery pieces and rubbles of a palace about 40-60 feet deep in the sea. The visibility in the sea in the area is also conducive for scuba diving, Bhamburkar says. "This is perhaps the first time in the world that one would be diving to see a submerged city", he claims. The scuba diving enthusiasts could also experience a stay in "live aboard" boats, which the ASL plans to design to lodge a family or a group.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, February 18, 2005

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The Swedish government will pay for the cost of two replicas of Rabindranath Tagore's Nobel Prize medallion stolen in March, say officials of Visva Bharati University where the theft took place. On March 25, security staff of 'Uttarayan', Tagore's home inside the university in Santiniketan town, discovered that at least 50 of his memorabilia, including the Nobel gold medal he won in 1913, were missing. Failing to recover the stolen medallion, the university officials asked the Stockholm-based Nobel awards committee for a replica. The committee sent gold and bronze replicas costing Rs 171,000. Now the Swedish government would reimburse the money, Visva Bharati sources claimed. Meanwhile, the probe into the Nobel theft appears to have run into a wall. The investigation is now being carried out jointly by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the West Bengal police.

Courtesy: Hindustan Times, February 17, 2005

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Aloe vera gels, mango seed butter soaps, coconut water and rosemary face extracts - beauty is more than just skin deep. Riding high on 'back to nature' wave, the Indian cosmetic industry is heading for a complete makeover, rediscovering the long-forgotten herbal formulas and beauty secrets. "The 'back to nature' trend has swept the world in the last one decade. Its impact has finally reached India... We are rediscovering our past, says Shahnaz Husain, a leader in herbal cosmetics. "More and more people are realising that looking beautiful is not just a matter of make-up, hairstyle and trendy clothes. Fitness and natural beauty play an important role and that is where the natural cosmetics and beauty products are establishing themselves," says Shahnaz. Those in the business say the going has never been better for the Indian beauty industry. Estimated at Rs 1800 crore, the industry is growing at 25 per cent annually, while the growth rate of herbal cosmetics sector, estimated at Rs 400 crore is much higher - at 40 per cent. "The natural and ayurvedic sector has seen a phenomenal growth in the last 2-3 years. Also, awareness about beauty treatments, skin, hair care and make up too has been growing," says Shahnaz. "The Indian cosmetic companies are just trying to rediscover, what was lying forgotten," he says, but adds "the major share is still of shampoos, creams and lotions." He says India is one of the fastest growing markets, and the target of most cosmetic majors is women between 18-35, with a monthly income of Rs 10,000 and above.

Courtesy: Hindustan Times, February 14, 2005

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If you were to go out into the street and ask people to spell, for example, Thiruvananthapuram, most would probably get it wrong. They probably wouldn't fare much better with, say, Mahabharat, or even poppadom at a pinch. But there's one person who will get them and a host of other not-so-simple words, right, and that person is a 13-year-old. She is called Gayathri Kumar and she has recently beaten 100,000 young hopefuls to be crowned Britain's top speller. The competition was organised and televised by the BBC under the title "Hard Spell", and was inspired by the success of a similar event in the United States. The young winner only got one word wrong throughout the entire contest. In an interview with the Eastern Eye newspaper, she confessed to being nervous but, "as I went through the heats, I started to relax more. The most difficult word I got was "Garibaldi" and it was the only word I got wrong throughout the whole competition". The young girl never really thought she stood a chance of winning, "I felt really shocked when I won the competition and even started crying". That was after the final round in which she spelt chihuahua correctly and her rival spelt dachshund wrongly.

Courtesy: www.timesofindia.com, February 11, 2005

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A senior professor of physics in Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Dr Spenta Wadia, has been selected for the prestigious Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) prize 2004 for his significant contribution in theoretical physics. The award, carrying a cash prize of $10,000 has been announced by the Academy of Sciences for the developing world, Trieste, Italy, a TIFR release said here on Monday. The annual TWAS prizes, awarded in eight fields of scientific research, rank among the highest accolades given to scientists in developing countries and Wadia is the only Indian to receive the award for the year 2004. The awards will be given at a function to be held in Alexandria, Egypt in November 2005. The TWAS award was given specifically for his work in non-pertubative quantum field theory and sting theory, the release said. Wadia is also a fellow of the Indian National Science Academy and New York Academy of Sciences and was awarded the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics prize in 1995, TIFR said.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, February 08, 2005

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Dr Shakeel Ahmed, a senior scientist at National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI), has been selected for the international prize `Lights of Water' at the conclave on water held at Cannes in France. According to an NGRI statement, Dr Ahmed was selected for the annual award for his continued efforts in promoting international collaboration in the field of water sciences. At present, he heads the Indo-French Centre for Groundwater Research from Indian side.

Courtesy: The Hindu Business Line, February 02, 2005

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