Increased competition and slipping marketshares are forcing Maruti Udyog to bring even its superannuated execs out of the woodworks. R.C. Bhargava, the 69-year-old former MD of Maruti who's now a part-time director on the board, is chairing various committees and has been given a mandate to help streamline the company's hr and supply chain management. "Knowing Maruti and the auto sector well, I can act as a sounding board for the company. That's my role," maintains Bhargava, who also runs a management consultancy. The mild-mannered Bhargava, who was labelled a Suzuki man during his stint at the top during the mid-1990s, needn't worry about such tags this time around.

Patch Up Time

Dogged by controversy, former Britannia Managing Director Sunil Kumar Alagh has always been a big fan of Jerry the mouse. "I want Jerry's skills to survive and thrive in any situation," he had told BT in an interview in 2002. (He doesn't answer queries from journalists these days.) Those skills certainly seem to be helping him tide over the allegations of financial impropriety, and in the process, smoke the peace pipe with Britannia promoter Nusli Wadia. According to sources in Britannia, the board which meets next week to discuss the observations made by C.C Chokshi & Company, the independent auditors appointed to examine the books, may take a kinder view on the 55-year-old Alagh's case. It's not yet clear what aces he has up his sleeve to make Wadia toe a softer line, but with both parties politically well-connected, mediation as in the case of l'affaire Bajaj might just save the day. All's well that ends well.

Lured Away

Being Karnataka's it secretary is a bit like coaching the Australian cricket team. With top-flight players lined up, all you need is a good strategy. The combination results in World Cup victory (increased exports and investments, in the bureaucrat's case), and companies queue up to the coach asking him to share his winning mantra with their managers. The state's suave and soft-spoken IT secretary Vivek Kulkarni is following in the footsteps of his predecessor Sanjay Das Gupta, who quit in 1998 to join the private sector. Kulkarni isn't revealing where he's headed, but the buzz is he's starting a BPO outfit funded by a clutch of leading venture capitalists. We aren't sure for how long Rajeev Chawla, his likely successor, can resist the temptation of a hat-trick.

A Matter of Trust

When a young Mahesh C. Bagrodia was contemplating joining MIT after his degree in chemical engineering, it was G.D. Birla who asked him to get some work experience instead. In an unbroken association with the Birla group that started in 1956, Bagrodia has worked with four generations of Birlas. Now, the 66-year-old, regarded as the group's talent incubator, has been handpicked by K.M Birla, ahead of younger contenders, to be the MD of Birla Management Corporation, the group's apex decision-making body. A fitness freak, Bagrodia has three-hour yoga session in the mornings and workouts at Mumbai's CCI in the evenings. AV Birla Group's health is no doubt in safe hands.

Ketchup God

When Pradeep Poddar, 49, took over the reins at Heinz India, (the ketchup and Complan company) in 1994, he did something quintessentially Bengali. His company started funding close to 100 Durga Puja pandals across Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata. "We try and bring out philosophical meaning of the pujas and help people implement it in modern times," explains Poddar, a chemical engineer from Bombay University. Apart from giving his company more visibility, sponsoring pujas serve a more personal purpose as well. "It helps my search for an extension to my spiritual self," says Poddar. We can't figure out what it means, but surely Poddar needs all the divine help he can get to make his two-brand company grow.

Turnaround Master

Even for a man whose CV boasts of turning around the country's largest mutual fund and restructuring troubled nationalised banks, this is going to be a tough one. Meleveetil Damodaran, the 56-year-old CEO of UTI Mutual Fund, has been designated the interim CMD of the beleaguered IDBI for an unspecified period. Given IDBI's shrinking balance sheet, rising NPAs and eroding profitability, Damodaran would know that it won't be easy cleaning up the mess, even if the Parliament converts IDBI into a bank. Still, given his track record Damodaran's bosses in North Block are convinced he could prove to be a great goalkeeper yet again. Meanwhile, the soccer fan is actually writing a book on the game's great goalees.

-Compiled by T.R. Vivek; contributed by Moinak Mitra, Roshni Jayakar and Venkatesha Babu