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 Early
next year, when B. Muthuraman takes his wife on their annual
vacation, he plans to traverse almost the length and breadth of
Asia-Pacific. No, it isn't the Muthuramans' 25th wedding anniversary
and neither are they crazy about this part of the world. Rather,
for the Tata Steel MD at least, it will be business as usual. Recently,
the Tata group company acquired the steel business of NatSteel of
Singapore for about Rs 1,300 crore, and Muthuraman, who joined Tata
Steel as a trainee engineer in 1966 and became its top executive
in 2001, hasn't seen any of NatSteel's six units in Singapore, China,
Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines and Australia. "I think
it's a good way of mixing business with pleasure," says the
amateur golfer and the man credited with getting Tata Steel's spanking
new cold roll mill in Jamshedpur up and running in a record time
of 25 months. BT has no idea what Muthuraman's better half thinks
of his busman's holiday.
 In
Top Gear
In the late nineties, when a little-known Korean
car company wanted to set up shop in India, all it heard from potential
lenders were reasons why it shouldn't. B.V.R. Subbu, President
of Hyundai Motor India, must be glad the advice went unheeded. For,
Hyundai is not just the third-biggest car marketer in India today,
but its No. 1 exporter, a distinction it achieved in Q1 2004-05.
Says Subbu: "We have exported 40,000 so far this year and should
do 70,000 by the end of the year. This is a significant achievement
for us in only our sixth year of operation." And for India.
 Discovery
of India
Nineteen isn't usually the age when most start
thinking in terms of launching a people's movement. But, then, Anand
Piramal isn't most people. Son of Ajay and Swati Piramal of
the Rs 2,500-crore Piramal Enterprises, the young Piramal is a student
of economics and philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania and
founder of a youth movement called Dreaming of an Indian Awakening
(DIA). Its mission: awaken young Indians to the country's rich heritage
and potential. Piramal knows what the process of discovery can do.
He himself went through one two years ago when his high school teacher
in the UK introduced him to the richness of Indian civilisation.
Says Piramal: "Like Gandhiji said, a small body of determined
spirits...can alter the course of history." Clearly, the young
one's learnt his lessons well.
 Lucky
Star...
It's a perfect script that might well have
been written by one of her writers. A television content company,
after a wildly successful run on the small screen, goes public but
suddenly finds its magic waning. Enter a long-time partner, who
not just cements the relationship but coughs up hard cash as well.
That, in effect, is how Star TV's decision to buy a 21 per cent
stake in "soap queen" Ekta Kapoor's Balaji Telefilms
beams across to the stockmarket. The money from the deal (Rs 123
crore) will help Balaji diversify out of software production and
create sources of more stable revenue. Although the Kapoors' stake
in Balaji will drop significantly, they will continue to call the
shots and sell to Star's rivals. Let's hope the more confident Kapoors
stop naming their serials with a K.
 Resurrecting
A Legend
Back in the 1950s, Pallonji Shapoorji Mistry's
family part-funded Bollywood classic Mughal-e-Azam. Four decades
on, the man is all set to resurrect the legendary movie in a modern
format, including Dolby sound and digital restoration, to turn the
black and white celluloid into colour. That apart, the background
score and songs are to be remixed in Hollywood, and the movie should
hit theatres worlwide in November. It's not known how much money
Mistry is spending on the project, but various estimates put it
at about Rs 5 crore. Could this mark the family's return to film-financing?
According to a group executive, No. "This is just the completion
of a long-standing dream of Pallonji Mistry," says the executive.
Small indulgence for a billionaire businessman.
 ...Unlucky
Star
Ever since she left Sony Entertainment Television
(SET), Ravina Raj Kohli's streak of bad luck has been continuing.
In 2000, she joined Kerry Packer-Himachal Futuristic promoted Channel
Nine as CEO in India, and it shut down very soon-for no fault of
hers. Then as President of Star News in India, she had to kick-start
operations amidst a huge foreign ownership controversy last year.
Not just that, the lady had to take on a hugely popular Hindi news
channel (Aaj Tak, owned by the publishers of Business Today). Far
from reaching the top slot, Star News has actually dropped to No.
4 in terms of popularity. And Kohli has had to pay for it with her
job. She has had to quit as the CEO of Media Content & Communications
Services India, the company running Star News in India. Will her
next assignment be more successful? Wait for the news.
-Contributed by R. Sridharan, Kushan
Mitra, Roshni Jayakar, Priyanka Sangani and Shailesh Dobhal
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