The biggest mistake Indian trade officials can make with us Deputy Trade Representative is to simply go by his name. For, Karan Bhatia, 34, is Indian only in name. Like bureaucrats in India are discovering, the Washington, D.C.-born trade rep is as aggressive as any American. "India's bilateral trade with the us is more than 20 per cent of its total trade and this trend is rising, but if high regulations persist in India, the relationship might see a negative change," warns the Princeton University, London School of Economics, and Columbia University-educated Bhatia. Ever since he was appointed as the Deputy Trade Rep last year, Bhatia has been doing the rounds of Delhi, meeting heavyweights like Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Kamal Nath. "I am satisfied with the pace of my ongoing talks, but a lot needs to be done on the regulations side," he says, possibly not for the last time.

Taking the Next Call

For Sandip Das, the next call has just come. The Deputy Managing Director of Hutchison Essar is set to take up his new assignment as CEO of Malaysia's largest telecommunications company, Maxis. Das, 48, has been a Hutchison-Essar veteran of 13 years, and in fact was Hutch's first employee in India. Das, an FMS alumnus, will join Maxis in the middle of January next year and describes his stint with Hutch as one of "pure, unadulterated joy." "(Maxis) is a natural next step in my career and I am excited about stretching my own frontiers," Das told BT. Maxis, which has a subscriber base of more than seven million in Malaysia, has a presence in Indonesia and India as well. Given his track record at Hutch-Essar, this is one challenge Das must be looking forward to.

Scoring a Point

When the super-rich go to watch football, they usually sit in the owner's box. or so figured Ispat Industries' Pramod Mittal, who is in talks to acquire Bulgarian club, CSKA Sofia. The acquisition is part of the 50-year-old Mittal's growing links with the country. He recently acquired a majority stake in Bulgarian steel producer Kremikovtzi, and has asked the country's former Vice-Premier Alexandar Tomov to help snag the deal. CSKA, not incidentally, is the most successful football club in Bulgaria, with 30 national titles. However, Tomov told reporters that the "new owners" want not just domestic success but European glory. So what if Mittal's elder brother, Laxmi Niwas, the richest Indian in the world, is the owner of Europe's and the world's biggest steel company Arcelor-Mittal? The younger Mittal seems to have found a totally unexpected route to Europe's heart.

Men in Blue(s)

Thirty years ago, it was Piyush Pandey's fond hope to make it to the Indian cricket team. But while his buddy from St. Stephen's College (Arun Lal) made it, Pandey, 50, had to look for other ways to make a living. Today, he is the Executive Chairman of Ogilvy & Mather India, but is still a cricket buff. So, when the Board of Cricket Control in India (BCCI) invited him to give a pep-talk to the Indian cricket team getting thrashed in South Africa, Pandey was overjoyed, but unable to because of his schedule. "I wanted to go talk to them, because these guys are good, but they seem to have lost all motivation," moans Pandey. Greg Chappell, watch out.

A Boost for Sure

It won't be personal grooming, but it will still be about grooming for Zubair Ahmed. The former Gillette India head honcho has moved to GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare in India to take over from top man Nick Massey, who is moving back to the UK. Although Ahmed's new title says Vice President & General Manager, he will be the Country Manager. Why did Ahmed bail out of Gillette? After P&G acquired Gillette last year, Ahmed's focus was on helping integrate the two businesses. Job done, he was offered a new assignment elsewhere. But apparently Ahmed wanted to stay on in India. GSKCH, best-known for its Horlicks and Boost brands, made a break with the past too by tapping an executive from outside its system. Ahmed couldn't be reached, but a GSKCH release said it was "business as usual".

To Almighty His Due

If not the god, the trustees of Kerala's famous Guruvayoor temple must be ruing the fact that Puthan Naduvakkat Chenthamaraksha Menon isn't any heavier than his 70 kilos. Recently, the Chairman of Bangalore-based Sobha Developers, one of the top builders in the city, got himself weighed in gold and donated the matching 70 kilos of Swiss gold bars, worth Rs 6.80 crore, to the temple. What prompted the 58-year-old Menon to make the single-largest donation to Lord Krishna's best-known temporal abode in South? The Rs 570 crore that Sobha raised from an IPO at a premium. Menon, who first started his operations in Bangalore in 1994, chose not to comment on his donation saying, through a spokesperson, that this was a 'personal matter relating to faith'. Sobha investors needn't feel bad about the donation. If not dividends, they will surely receive divine blessings.

-Contributed by Pallavi Srivastava, Krishna Gopalan, Kushan Mitra and Venkatesha Babu