10 most memorable advertisements

1. SIMPLY DELICIOUS
Amul, 1967 to present
My favourite ad character is the Amul girl because she has been around for so many years and yet there is a freshness and topicality that is appealing. It is a simple ad, but something you look forward to seeing what the Amul girl would be up to next. The character too is very appealing, plus there is all that clever word-play on newsy issues. If Amul recognises you, you have made it.
Meenakshi Madhvani, Managing Partner, Spatial Access Solutions

2. BUTTERFLY EFFECT
Ek Titli on national unity, 1977
At that time, anything that was entertaining was such a bonus. The treatment was so new and it brought nostalgia, of our mythical India that we love so much, about grandmothers and mango trees. It was funny, cute and a superb film on national integration. You put it in the middle of the Mumbai carnage and it makes sense. The tune was hummable and people talk about it even today.
Anuja Chauhan, Executive Creative Director and VP, J Walter Thompson

3. RIGHTS IN YOUR FACE
Lalitaji of Surf, 1984
This came out at a time when I was in school and even then I took notice of it. I think it was the first time that I saw a typical portrayal of a middle class, value-conscious and slightly aggressive woman who insisted on getting the right thing. It was much like Doordarshan's crusading Rajni. The actor playing the role of Lalitaji also did a charming job.
Abhijit Avasthi,Executive Creative Director, South Asia, Ogilvy & Mather

10 top society trends

1. RISE OF THE PUPPIES 1988
What's an ideal puppy marriage? Marrying the video and asking for the bride in dowry.
An ideal puppy evening? One spent between guzzles of scotch and Ghulam Ali.
So said India Today when it wrote about PUPPIES, a new social class of prosperous urban Punjabi who is young. It also coined a new term for what they eventually become, WOOPIES, well-off older Punjabis.2. HEELS ON WHEELS 1989
While it needs a well-heeled woman to be four-wheeled, India Today said in 1989 that the two-wheeler had become the middle-class woman's key to all the opportunities that mobility brings her.
3. THE KITTEN BRIGADE 1990
The kitty party has now become a perfumed arena of one-upmanship, said India Today in 1990. Whose husband travels more?
Who has more tutors for her children?
It also noted, with prescience, that the sisterhood is becoming aninformal trade fair.

10 tech triumphs

The technology of the times was reflected in India Today as the best brains of the nation turned their knowledge into real applications. The Rs 45,000-car was a tad more expensive than planned, but went on to rule the roads. India got a grip on nuclear power, for both energy and diplomacy.
Hi-tech gadgets reached the masses as the communications revolution kicked off.Aspace programme took India to where it had never been before with an impactor carrying the tricolour landing on the moon. In medicine,new frontiers were breached with every passing year. India Today was there every time,as science showed the way to a better future as Indian hospitals attracted global patients, as ordinary citizens connected with each other and the world, and as the Internet reached handheld devices and back pockets.
1. SMALL IS BIG
Maruti to Tata Nano
In 1983, the Maruti 800 revolutionised the way India travelled. Two years later, it was the largestselling car in India, recalled India Today in 2003.
Almost 25 years later, when Tata drove the Nano on to the stage, it was clear that Indian innovation had shifted to a higher orbit, noted India Today in January 2008.
Clearly, good things continue to come in small packages.
2. THE RIGHT CALL
Telecommunications
The modernisation of telephone systems got underway in 1986 when Mahanagar Telephone Nigam was established to operate systems in Bombay and Delhi.
There's good news for subscribers: the waiting list of 3.7 lakh in the two cities could disappear by 1990, noted India Today in 1986.
The current situation is best described by this 2006 report: Telecommunication has gone from a total of five million telephone lines in 1991 to five million telephones every month.
3. BLAST FROM THE PAST
Nuclear Energy
India's first atomic explosion, at Pokharan,Rajasthan,on May 18, 1974, may be the last. It raised so much political dust that it has taken three years and a change of government in Delhi to bring it down to earth .
This was the mood of the nation in 1974, captured by India Today. In May 1998, India conducted five nuclear tests at the Pokhran test range demonstrating its tremendous capability in nuclear technology and science.

10 things that could happen only in India

1. FREE FALL
Skylab I falling in India
Aportion of the satellite may fall on the earth with a high impact speed (India Today, September 1978). Since it was speculated that the Skylab may fall in south India, it was not uncommon to see people wearing special helmets to protect themselves from the 2,310-kg airlock shroud. In the end, the spacecraft chose to crash into the Indian Ocean near Australia.

2. DARK TALE
Wolves of Pavagada
The year 1983 saw a mystery that has remained unsolved till date. Girl children sleeping next to their parents began disappearing in Pavagada in Karnataka. It was alleged that man-eating wolves were behind it all. There were rumours of these being due to ritualistic sacrifices by a tantrik (India Today, August 1983).

3. FALSE AID
Magic cure for AIDS
Self-styled ayurvedic doctor T.A. Majeed shot into prominence when he claimed to have cured HIV-positive Chitra Soman and her daughter.
He alleged that his findings were being suppressed for ulterior motives (India Today, August 1993).
Soman later died due to full-blown TB as a result of AIDS, and Majeed was never heard of.

Top 10 global takeovers

The battle for control of Dhirubhai Ambani's hard-won empire was the stuff of 24x7 headline news channels, but divisions alone did not define Indian business in the post-liberalisation period.
As the government enabled a degree of progress with infrastructural changes, building roads,developing communication networks and facilitating travel, the corporate world flexed its unused business muscle picking up prestige brands like Tetley Tea and global behemoths like Corus.
But as India emerged victorious in the merger and acquisition game, there were hurdles on the way as well. In many cases,questions were raised about the capabilities of Indian companies. Sometimes, as in the case of Arcelor, it acquired a racist hue.
At other times, it was a question of the fit of an international luxury brand like Jaguar with an Indian company. The Indian economy grew, but not all Indian businesses made the transition from socialist isolation to economic connectedness. Some spilt amicably, others much less so.

1. FIRST AMONG EQUALS
Ram Prasad Goenka
The RPG Group led by 'takeover wizard'R.P. Goenka made a series of acquisitions, kicked off by the Duncan buy in 1959 to the offshore holdings of tyre-maker Dunlop India in 1980, Ceat Tyres in 1982, the Gramophone Co.of India (nowSaregama) in 1986, and Noida Power Company (NPCL) in 1992 among many others.The latest in the list was Canara Electric Controls in 2002. I gamble only in companies, Goenka told India Today in August 1984. Starting in the 1950s, the group patriarch and R.P.Goenka's father, K.P.Goenka, along with his three sons, made over 30 acquisitions in 25 years.

2. THE TREND-SETTER
Manohar 'Manu' Chhabria
Among the original corporate raiders of the country, Dubai-based Manohar 'Manu' Rajaram Chhabria picked up a large stake in Shaw Wallace in 1987 for Rs 35 crore, which remained mired in controversy and was finally sold to arch rival Vijay Mallya 20 years later.
Spending over Rs 300 crore on acquisitions, he bought stakes in companies such as Hindustan Dorr-Oliver, Mather and Platt and Dunlop India.
Hardly any other Indian businessman has climbed to the top 10 league so rapidly. (India Today, January 1989).
3. BLENDING SUCCESS
Ratan Tata
In 2000,Tata Tea took over Tetley Tea, the company which was twice Tata Tea's size and had introduced the world to tea bags, for £271 million via a leverage buyout. Themove turned the company into the world's second-largest tea marketer. While Tata was strong on the production front, Tetley's strengths lay in marketing.
At the time of acquisition,The two companies were merged a year later. The Tetley brand name would give Tata Tea access to markets in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, and the CIS countries, said the company's vicechairman, R.K. Krishna Kumar,whose mandate for the acquisition was simple: to eliminate the competition, Unilever. Tata Tea's transformation is an eloquent example of the group becoming market-focused and consumercentric (India Today, February 2003).