The world around us

Collecting art is one of my joys. I have been buying art ever since I was in college and have built up a nice collection of works ranging from modern to landscape to portraits to photographs and limited edition prints. I make it a point to buy at least one nice piece of art in each city that we live in and so far it has worked out rather well for us. As we make a move next month to Dubai, I’m looking forward to exploring the art scene there as well. In the meantime, I am keeping busy in checking out the art available online and came to see a new artist showing works at the Park West Gallery. Arkady Ostriski’s works caught my attention for their vibrant colors and striking attention to detail. I especially liked ‘Cafe les Parisiennes’ a hand-embellished serigraph in color on canvas done in 2001, that looks like it has been bathed in early morning light just after the rains. Definitely something that I’d want to hang in my home!

RPG Group’s Spencer’s Retail announced its plans for a public issue in the next 12 months to raise capital for its expansion. The company also announced that it will be investing Rs 1,000 crore over the next three years using both internal sources as well as an IPO. The company has already reserved 1 million sq ft of space all over the country and will be creating close to 10,000 jobs in its different formats. Spencer’s Retail currently employs 4,500 people and has 6 million sq ft of space.

I downloaded the new updates to Firefox this morning and really like some of the additions, like the automatic spell check, which is really coming handy here since I don’t have a plugin for this blog. I know lots are available, but never got around to downloading one. What I don’t like about the update is that now you can only see a certain number of tabs in one screen, rather than earlier where all the tabs would just squish together to be seen all at once. I found that really handy and this way takes me longer to go back and forth between my first tab and my last. There is a drop down list and I think I need to get used to using that instead, which will be faster and more efficient.

Uk based Retail Management Consultants (RMC) announced that they would be setting up a joint venture in India to provide experienced expats for senior positions in the retail industry. According to RMC Consultant Tony Brett, “Already about ten expats have been hired from Europe through us by some major retailers in India. In another two months time, we should be starting our operations here through a joint venture.” A joint venture with an Indian company has already been formed although the company did not disclose the identity of the company.

According to senior company officials, McDonald’s restaurants are facing a high attrition rate of 83% at the front-end level. Vikram Bakshi, managing director of McDonald’s India, said, “Well-trained people with experience are being pulled by different people because they need that talent.” McDonald’s is planning to open 45 restaurants by the end of 2007 to add to its 113 restaurants currently.