Since April last year, Promod Haque, managing partner of Palo Alto, California-based Norwest venture Partners, has been flying into India once every two months. So do other VCs; what's special about Haque? You ask. For one, the 55-year-old Haque is no ordinary VC. He is the #1 VC in the world (according to Forbes), having wrested that title recently from compatriot, Vinod Khosla of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. For another, Haque isn't betting his chips on plain vanilla it services companies and feeling good about it. Instead, he's going against the trend and investing in it start-ups that are headquartered in the US, but do bleeding-edge product development in India. "The least desirable way is to outsource; the most desirable is to have a 100 per cent subsidiary here in India where you can have your own people," says Haque, whose last visit in January this year went almost unnoticed. But those who met him saw him raving about his latest investment-a company called veveo.tv. What's hot about it? According to Haque, it's ushering in the next big revolution in television by turning viewers into producers-just like bloggers on the internet. We'll wait for that.

Flag Not Fizz

As a potential Pepsico CEO, Indira Nooyi's visits to India are usually high-profile events. But her latest visit earlier this month was very, very low key. Nooyi, President of PepsiCo, did not even visit the Gurgaon headquarters of the cola giant's India subsidiary. Instead, the Chennai-bred lady, part of a 35-strong NRI group on foreign investment in India, met the finance minister to share her thoughts. We hear Nooyi and her group made some bold recommendations. This is one one-upmanship that her rivals at Coke will be hard-pressed to beat.

Doing A Zyman

It's one lesson that Shripad Nadkarni (bottom right) seems to have learnt well at Coca-Cola India: how to go from a successful marketer to a marketing guru. Seven years ago, Coke's legendary head of marketing Sergio Zyman did just that. Earlier this month, it was Nadkarni's turn to follow suit. Hitherto Vice President of marketing at Coke, the 43-year-old quit to set up his own strategic marketing consultancy. "I had been thinking about it for some time, and thought the time was right now," says Nadkarni. Joining him in the venture will be Sharda Agarwal, 36, Coca-Cola India's Director (Marketing), who interestingly enough not only studied at iim-Bangalore like Nadkarni, but also worked at Johnson & Johnson (like him) before joining Coke. Whether doing a Zyman will get a Zyman, though, remains to be seen.

GSM Czar

Airtel mobile phone customers may fret about call drops and poor signal, but that hasn't stopped Sunil Bharti Mittal's GSM-based cellular empire from becoming bigger and bigger. Recently, Airtel reached a new landmark by roping in the 10-millionth customer. And now, Mittal has become the first Indian to earn a place on the board of directors of the GSM Association, an industry body that represents more than 670 mobile operators world over who use the GSM technology (as against CDMA of Reliance Infocomm and Tata Teleservices). Mittal, just 47 years old, has long been the face of the GSM lobby in India. Without doubt, his elevation to the global GSM body will add to his clout in India. That's just as well. As reported elsewhere in this issue, the GSM and CDMA camps are fighting a bitter battle for spectrum to offer third-generation mobile services. At stake is the future growth of the two different telecom technologies. More than ever, Mittal may be expected to lead the GSM charge.

A Legacy To Remember

It was a rare and touching moment. Eighty-three-year-old Basant Kumar Birla presenting the first copy of the book, Not Allowed To Cry by Ingrid Albuquerque, to his great grandson, Aryaman Vikram Birla. What brought the two Birlas together publicly? The subject of the book is BK's late son, Aditya Vikram Birla, and his fortitude and courage in the face of debilitating cancer. Therefore, it was only befitting that BK should personally hand over a copy of the inspiring story to a young scion-just like G.D. Birla passed on a chunk of the group's legacy to his favourite grandson, Aditya Birla. The young Aryaman may not have known his grandfather. But thanks to the great grandfather, he now has an opportunity to learn more about him.

The Art 0f Quitting

It's not surprising that Britannia's COO Nikhil Sen left just 10 days after Vinita Bali took over as the CEO. What is? The fact that Sen stayed on for more than a year after his mentor Sunil Kumar Alagh was ousted in a very public management fight at the cookie major. Where is the 45-year-old Sen, who joined Britannia as a management trainee way back in 1980, headed? Nobody knows for sure, but Sen, who is credited with several marketing successes, including the launch of low-priced Tiger biscuits, is said to be weighing a couple of options. One is to join a leading FMCG company (possibly ITC, a little bird tells BT) and the other is to set up his own consulting firm. Then, there's always the Art of Living Foundation of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar that counts Sen among its ardent supporters.

-contributed by Alokesh Bhattacharyya, Shailesh Dobhal, Sahad P.V.,
Roshni Jayakar and Venkatesha Babu