IT, ITES worst-hit; Healthcare and Pharma in welcome uptick.

Two decades after entering India, Microsoft is changing tack. Though its renewed push has coincided with the economic slowdown, the changes in the company’s strategy are for the long term. Rahul Sachitanand reports.

Tech giants are setting up ‘universities’ to train engineers and techies to suit their business needs.

As in people, adversity can bring out the best in organisations, too. Companies with sound business strategy are defying the laws of gravity and will emerge from the ongoing recession more battle-hardened and stronger than before.

...There must be smuggling. Indian-made cigarettes, the #1 FMCG, are facing a tidal wave of smuggled imports that get away without paying killer excise rates.

Google retrofits a bus with VSAT equipment and computers and video screens to ride out the dusty country roads of semi-urban towns in Tamil Nadu in a journey aimed at making Internet a point of relevance in people’s lives rather than just a matter of interest. As its bus traverses through small towns to understand Internet illiteracy, Nitya Varadarajan shares the experience.

In businesses, big or small, ranging from manufacturing to music, the fight for intellectual property is getting intense. Neglect it and you could be out of business.

This is Business Today’s Third Annual Listing of hottest start-ups and, pretty much like the two previous lists in 2007 and 2008, this listing is also completely subjective.

By its own admission, the UPA presided over the best 5-year period of the Indian economy. But why doesn’t its financial management reflect this dream run?

Employees as well as employers are struggling in this financial downturn—the employees to find jobs in a market where very few companies want to hire and employers to carry out layoffs as gently and painlessly as possible, and failing miserably. Saumya Bhattacharya reports.  5 Lakh to 50 LakhThere’s life after layoff...Campus droughtTime to talkDealing with your first slowdownUnited we standVeterans in the downturn

After Bangalore, technology is focussing on other Indian cities.

Close to half of the cream of India Inc. prefers to have lesser-known auditors.

A study of 165 Indian universities shows a sharp growth in student numbers and identifies faculty shortage as the biggest headache.

Poor literacy rate, bad infrastructure and lack of university-industry interaction has cost India dear in the 2008 Global Innovation Index rankings.

A new report suggests ways to fix the ‘flaws’ in the functioning of the IIMs, but the prescription has created controversy and resentment among top IIMs.

Modern business has lots to learn-and lots to learn from. Management education is getting better and more accessible. There are more management books and journals today than ever before.

BT’s Anniversary Specials? ?have not just been chronicling the travails and triumphs of India Inc. but also been guiding and setting the agenda for it. Here’s the proof:

BT asks the who’s who of India’s corporate world—as well as some professionals and leaders from other fields for good measure—to jog their memory and recall the best advice they ever got. What the advice was, who gave it to them and when, and how it helped them.

Microfinance in India  has grown fast. But has it also grown right?

House hunting in the NCR is akin to a picnic— take the day off and visit several properties and property dealers, haggle till your tongue drops off and then haggle some more. BT reporters go incognito across five cities to find out what’s the best deal your money can buy against a developer’s listed price.