Business Today May 22, 2016

We have had an early onset of summer this year, and after two years of bad monsoons, the water crisis has become acute in all parts of the country. The Marathwada region of Maharashtra is experiencing severe drought, and so are Telangana, large parts of Rajasthan and Odisha, among others. Even some parts of the country, which are technically not under the grip of drought, are facing severe water shortage. A recent newspaper report says that some of Mumbai’s posh apartment complexes depend on water tankers for their daily supply. Water rationing has become the norm in many parts of the country, and factories in some of the worst-affected areas have had to close down or at least work in only one shift as they do not get the water…

The Needle of Suspicion This refers to your cover story on Tata Group (Trophy Buy, Distress Sale, May 8). The in-depth study of the Group’s performance in the European market is worth publishing. It’s quite interesting to read. And also, it’s quite unimaginable that a steel plant was sold for peanuts – £1! In India, it is below the price of a half broiler chicken. No doubt the distress sale has dented the image of the group and Ratan Tata’s dream of “good times in steel industry” has been belied. But who is behind this disaster? Who is the needle of suspicion pointing at? It is high time the patriarch of the Tata empire traced the troublemaker and found a troubleshooter before his empire vanishes into the blue. B.S. Acharya,…

$250 BILLION Apple’s cash reserves and marketable securities, out of which $200 billion – a whopping 93 per cent – are stacked overseas. CEO Tim Cook has made it clear that the company has no plans to bring the proceeds home and sacrifice roughly 40 per cent of that stash to pay taxes in the US. VAULT-FACE Karti Chidambaram, son of former Union finance minister P. Chidambaram, is in trouble for allegedly owning benami assets worth thousands of crores across the world. According to reports, Income Tax and Enforcement Department raids have found Wills executed by benami holders, purportedly in favour of his daughter, in Karti’s vault. TOO ODD TO EVEN OUT BJP MP Ram Prasad Sharma arrived on horseback, while Manoj Tiwari rode a bicycle to Parliament to protest…

09 - 10 SMART FACTORY WHAT: CII IQ Anniversary Day & National Business Excellence Conclave 2016 WHEN: May 9-10, New Delhi WHAT TO LOOK FOR: The event will seek to recognise key strategies and opportunities that smart manufacturing brings to a company, learn about new technologies such as 3D printing, robotics, and new software solutions to bring about the fourth major industrial revolution, through the eyes of the CEOs, COOs, VPs, directors and business leaders. 13 GO GREEN WITH PLASTIC WHAT: 5th National Conference on Potential of Plasticulture in India WHEN: May 13, New Delhi WHAT TO LOOK FOR: India currently supports nearly 17.50 per cent of world’s population and 4 per cent of water resources. And, Indian agriculture consumes 80 per cent of available water. Plasticulture can play an…

Urvesh Goel appears thrifty on professional networking site LinkedIn where he talks about how his company, Syberplace, is different from other online electronic stores. “The key differentiation is that we do not give away anything for free,” he writes. His thriftiness is apparent in the way he promotes his company – by watching every return on investment (ROI). “About 22-30 per cent of our advertising spending is on Google and about 1-5 per cent on Facebook,” he says. “Facebook is on and off.” Why is that? Goel’s loyalties towards Google came from a gradual realisation. Social media giant Facebook is great for building a brand, he figured out. But, unlike Google, it falters when it comes to sales or ROI. On the other hand, Google helps businesses capitalise on existing…

Search n' Watch Those painstaking moments of scrolling through channels looking for something to watch on TV could be history. Google has decided to simplify this process for us. In a blog post, the search engine announced that it would soon have live TV listings, which means when a user searches for a particular show on Google it won’t just lead you to apps and sites where you can watch the latest episode, but will also display its TV airing time and channel. “What we're seeing is that more and more viewers are turning to their phones to find out what to watch, where to watch it and when it’s available," Google said in a blog post. “In fact, searches for TV shows and films on mobile have grown more…