A dynamic business environment needs people in key positions to be well equipped in terms of skills- functional, managerial as well as personal; to handle high pressure and deliver under any situation. While it is routine for HR professionals to utilize various tools from credential checks to skills assessments and interviews to identify potential performers, employee recruitment and career management decisions require a lot more. It is imperative that an individual’s personality is evaluated before critical decisions can be taken which can harshly impact productivity.

Organizations are now turning to psychometrics for evaluating candidates in terms of their personality characteristics, interpersonal style and job-specific aptitudes to maximize job success and minimize the chances of untoward hiring or promotion decisions. There has been a steady increase in the deployment of psychometric assessments, including various personality, aptitude and vocational interest tests, in addition to traditional screening procedures, to get a 360-degree picture of the individual that is being hired or promoted. Organizations that have integrated effective psychometric assessment procedures into their recruitment processes have come to regard this methodology as an indispensable guard against the potentially expensive outcomes of even a few erroneous hiring or promotion decisions.

Recruitment is not the only area where psychometric assessments are used, although it is the most common and almost certainly where a majority of people first come into contact with this kind of assessment. Other frequent uses are for:

>> Career and management development

>> Team building

>> Internal promotion

>> Training needs analysis

>> Counseling

For the success of any psychometric assessment the tool needs to adhere to certain best practices. Analysis of the score and its usage also form a key part in the success or failure of such a tool. The interpretation of the score has to be done by a certified psychologist and the report generated should be in a friendly format. The report from most personality tools acts as a great interview input which can be used to structure interviews and gauge candidates minutely through focused questioning. It is important to note that personality assessment tools Do Not provide select or reject answers as the measurement is only subjective. Personality assessments are evaluators of the inclination of subjects on defined parameters and select or reject decisions can be taken on the specific requirements of a job role and company.

So how do these psychometric assessments benefit an organisation? By allowing meaningful comparison between candidates on relevant competencies employers can make sure that different backgrounds or experience levels do not overly affect the selection process. Personality is one of the most important elements of individual role fitment and one of the hardest to judge - at an interview people will generally put forward the image that they want you to see. By using well-established measures, employers can gain an extra insight into an individual. These can also provide pertinent issues for conversation in subsequent interviews that are relevant to the specific candidate, rather than being general standard questions.

Undertaking meaningful decisions in most recruitment/promotion situations can be an onerous task and taking calls on the intrinsic personality can often be fraught with danger. But these are calls which managers necessarily have to take and any tool bringing a modicum of insights into the matter will be a huge help to companies.

The Enchantress of Florence, Salman Rushdie, 2008, Jonathan Cape, price not stated.

If you are the kind of reader who begins at the end, you will first bump into the six-page-long bibliography appended to The Enchantress of Florence. Despite this, Rushdie’s latest novel remains a rich re-imagining of history with hardly a trace of the scholarly heaviness that one has come to expect of fiction that grapples with historical and political themes. The enchantment, thankfully, is alive and kicking — at least for the most part, and the narrative retains a seductive lightness. But while readers escape the fate of having to plod their way through historical detail, there is another path, the path of mirrors and reflected story lines in Mughal India and Renaissance Florence, that they have to traverse. This then is the trade off, essentially.

While The Enchantress of Florence is a story about many things and a story about story-telling itself, it is anchored, if somewhat insecurely, around the visit of a yellow-haired European, Nicola Vespucci or Mogor dell’Amore, to the court of Akbar. Claiming that he is the son of Akbar’s grand-aunt, the European restores public memory of Qara Koz or the hidden princess who was cast out of Mughal history for choosing her conqueror over her family. The hidden princess becomes the ultimate traveller in this cross-cultural tale, a traveller who shifts allegiance with disloyal ease. When Akbar falls in love with her memory, moving his imagined queen Jodha out of the way, it is a love that smacks of incest and blasphemy.

Probing around the gaps of history, Rushdie delves into the minds of historical characters such as Akbar to string together a multi-themed narrative about time, travel, identity, power, desire and story-telling. The over-arching metaphor that binds these themes together is the mirror: the hidden princess has a slave girl who is her mirror, the Florentine Argalia is, to an extent, the mirror of Mogor dell’Amore, Jodha Akbar has a mirror in the hidden princess, the Mughal artist Dashwanth who paints Qara Koz and the Florentine artist Filipepi who paints the other enchantress in the novel, Simonetta, are mirrors of one another, and so on. On a larger scale, the Mughal empire and Renaissance Florence mirror each other as well. As Mogor dell’Amore tells Akbar, “This may be the curse of the human race…Not that we are so different from one another, but that we are so alike.” As the stories twist and turn in front of mirrors, reality becomes a mirage. The lake at Sikri is a mirror too, reflecting the shifting fortunes of the city.

His irreverent self with his usual irreverence, Rushdie transforms Akbar into a fictional character, exploring his psyche at leisurely length. There are insightful if somewhat tongue-in-cheek comments on Akbar’s attempt to switch to the democratic “I” from the royal “we” and the difficult issue of handling power, the ethical burden of being king. On the other hand, Qara Koz’s access to power is of a very different sort. She has to be enchantress in order to rule. The identity of women in the narrative is highly fluid and under constant threat.

There is a downside to reading The Enchantress of Florence which perhaps those who know Rushdie would in any case anticipate: it is overdone in parts and at times the story more than runs away with itself. There is also the curse of the long sentence: perfectly constructed and reasoned out no doubt, but still a bit over the top. Take, for instance, this one: “[Akbar learned] about the dignity of the lost, about losing, and how it cleansed the soul to accept defeat, and about letting go, avoiding the trap of holding on too tightly to what you wanted, and about abandonment in general, and in particular fatherlessness, the lessness of fathers, the lessness of the fatherless, and the best defences of those who are less against those who are more: inwardness, forethought, cunning, humility, and good peripheral vision.” The occasional lapse into hyphenated coinage is no less annoying: “‘He must have been mad to bring you,’ Argalia told her when blood-filthy and kill-sick he found her abandoned at the death-heavy end of the day.”

In Rushdie’s universe, there are two kinds of people: those who travel and those who prefer not to. Jodha as the queen who never leaves the palace thinks of travel as something that removes you “from the place in which you had a meaning, and to which you gave meaning in return by dedicating your life to it.” In this, she is like Ago Vespucci, the Florentine, who believes that it isn’t “necessary to go questing across the world and die among guttural strangers to find your heart’s desire.” Yet, stories travel only because people travel — people like Mogor dell’Amore, Argalia and Qara Koz herself. Connected to travel is the notion of time. Mogor dell’Amore tells Akbar that in the new world, “the ordinary laws of space and time did not apply”, that time had been introduced to this world by the European voyagers. The point of the novel, however, is not that one culture is superior to the other but that both are equally fantastic, that both abound in stories and that travellers ensure that these stories, which are really mirrors of one another, travel back and forth.

One can’t help feeling victimised at times by the mirror itself. Its many reflections, made possible by a Rushdiean cleverness, get a bit tedious and reading the novel begins to feel like work. Fortunately, Rushdie’s humour compensates for much of this. We smile when Rushdie describes Queen Gulbadan: “When Gulbadan started climbing the family tree like an agitated parrot there was no telling how many branches she would need to settle on briefly before she decided to rest.”

The Enchantress of Florence is a book that will work for readers who are okay with getting a bit lost. Like Dashwanth, the artist who disappears into his paintings of the hidden princess, Rushdie demands that we permit ourselves to be sucked into his magic world of mirrors.

This is the Beijing Capital International Airport. It is the world’s largest airport building and the centerpiece of China’s multi-billion-dollar infrastructure boom and provides a glimpse into China’s vision of 21st-century air travel.

The futuristic airport has been built in preparation for the millions who are likely to visit China for the Olympic Games and to meet the country’s booming air traffic.

An airport employee cleans the floor at the new terminal building Terminal Three — T3 — at the Beijing Capital International Airport. This is the world’s largest terminal.

The roof of the swanky new terminal looks like a dragon from the air with its wing spread running 3.25 km. The giant dragon-shaped terminal is 100 hectares in size: that is as big as 170 soccer fields.

This makes the airport larger than the Pentagon and almost 20 per cent bigger than all five terminals of London’s Heathrow put together.

The terminal has walls of glass. The skylights of the terminal building are designed to look like scales on a dragon’s back and to let natural light into the building. The dragon is considered a sign of strength and luck in China.

Almost 50,000 workers toiled round the clock in 8-hour shifts and built the colossal $3.75-billion terminal in only four years. China wanted the airport to be ready before August 8, when the Beijing Olympic Games begin.

However, the construction of the airport involved the demolition of thousands of houses that rendered more than 10,000 Chinese peasants homeless. China’s autocratic Communist regime could thus manage to do something that democratic governments — like India’s — can hardly ever match.

The airport was designed by British architect Norman Foster, who has also designed Hong Kong’s famous Chep Lap Kok airport.

British firm Arup, which has provided engineering and architectural design services for the Hyderabad International Airport, built the airport.

The new terminal will have a capacity of 75 million passengers a year. It features an extremely high-tech passenger baggage system — on 50 km of conveyor belts — that can handle 19,800 bags per hour.

The size of the new Beijing airport can be gauged from the fact that it boasts of 64 restaurants, 80 retail stores, 175 escalators, 173 lifts, 437 travelators or moving footpaths, and 300 check-in counters.

The terminal has a 3-km long concourse, divided into three sections and connected by a shuttle train. The airport’s shuttle train service can ferry passengers around the mammoth airport.

According to Norman Foster, the airport’s architect, the airport is ’so big that under a certain amount of light you can’t see one end of the building from the other.’

Apart from the shuttle, a high-speed commuter train (subway as also elevated) service will carry passengers between the airport and Beijing in 15 minutes. Two Airport Lines, scheduled to open before July, on elevated lines connect the airport with the transport hub of Dongzhimen. The Olympic branch line has four stations, each with a theme.

The airport’s runway is capable of handling the world’s largest passenger aircraft, the Airbus A380.

The airport building has integrated environmental control systems to minimise energy consumption and carbon emissions, report say.

The airlines that will use airport initially include Air China, Sichuan Airlines, Shandong Airlines, Hong Kong’s Dragonair, Singapore Airlines, British Airways, Lufthansa, Air Canada, Qatar Airways, Qantas Airways, El Al Israel Airlines, Emirates and other Star Alliance members.

You might not have heard of Tara International or the electric cars and mopeds it plans to launch. But once the company unleashes Tara Tiny and Tara Titu — which will cost about Rs 99,000 — and Tara Shuttle and Tara Carrier, it is quite likely to become a household name.

“While Tara Tiny and Tara Titu are priced at Rs 99,000 (approximately), Tara Shuttle and Tara Carrier are priced at Rs 500,000 (approximately). The company�s electric bikes are priced between Rs 12,000 and Rs 35,000.

The running cost of these cars is about 40 paise per km, while the two-wheelers’ running cost will be as low at 15 paise per km. (100 paise = 1 rupee)

So here are some of vehicles that the company will soon be unleashing and the charming history of the company.

Tara Titu specifications:

No. of seats: 2

Net weight: 940 kg

Wheel base: 1800 mm

Maximum speed: 55 km/hour

Maximum grade ability: 13%

Motor power: 5 kw

Battery voltage: 12V*4

Recharge duration: 8 hours

Driving charge: 130 km

Ground clearance: 110/mm

Running cost: 55 p/km

Battery capacity: 200/Ah

The Tara Titu which will come in 2 variants: 2-seater and 4-seater, and will cost from Rs 99,000 onwards.
The story of Tara Ganguly

At the first meeting, you are sure to take Tara S Ganguly for a retired army man. Once you strike a conversation with him, you understand why: the chairman and chief executive officer of Tara International has the same zeal and fervour of a general. He is a visionary who wants to give back something to the society.

It is this urge in Ganguly that has goaded him to conceive pollution free, battery-driven cars. He visualises in his mind’s eye a pollution free world where green aka electric cars would replace fuel-driven cars.

“With the phenomenon of global warming breathing down our necks every minute, it is high time we switched over to battery-driven vehicles,” he told rediff.com during an informal chat in Kolkata on March 15. During the meeting, he also shared some interesting details about his life, business, electric cars et al. Excerpts:

Ganguly, born in 1942, went to the United States after finishing school at Darjeeling for a degree in engineering and management. He got a bachelor�s degree in industrial engineering from Pennsylvania University, Philadelphia, and a post-graduate degree in management engineering from Columbia University, New York.

After spending 10 years in the US working with DuPont Corporation, Ganguly returned to India to join his family business — Bengal Enamel — as production planning engineer and works manager. He gradually became the company’s managing director.
On the company’s inception

Bengal Enamel was set up in 1921 by Colonel Dwijendra Bhattacharya with nationalist leader Acharya Prafulla Chandra Roy as its first chairman. The company soon became a name to reckon with for its enamelled and other ware like plates, mugs and waterbottles for households and the army. Business runs in the blood of colonel’s grandson Ganguly and he decided to carry forward his ancestor’s legacy.
On why the company closed down

In the eighties, Bengal Enamel fell prey to competition from other materials and sank into the red before closing down in 1991. The company ended up before the Board for Industrial & Financial Reconstruction and is still paying off its dues to banks and workers.

The Tara Shuttle, which is a 14-seater and expected to cost about Rs 500,000.

Tara Shuttle specifications:

No. of seats: 14

Net weight: 1300 kg

Wheel base: 2800 mm

Maximum speed: 30 km/hour

Maximum grade ability: 15%

Motor power: 4.5 kw

Battery voltage: 6V*12

Recharge duration: 12 hours

Driving charge: 70 km

Ground clearance: 220/mm

Running cost: 70 p/km

Battery capacity: 180/Ah

Aamir Khan’s recent comments on close competitor Shah Rukh Khan is a testimony to the fact that today stars prefer waging wars in open than back-bitching. The usually reticent and media-shy Aamir was quoted saying, “Shah Rukh Khan prefers being No 2″.

Irrespective of whether he actually meant it or was instigated by the byte-hungry media, the comment clearly came across as caustic. And this wasn’t the first time that Aamir had remarked on Shah Rukh.

Some years back he had commented, “If Shah Rukh is the Badshah (King), I am the Ekka (Ace)”. Of course SRK had his replies ready. Which makes us wonder, not only is the Bollywood industry ruled by Khans, it’s rivaled by them as well.

The question arises as to who is at the Number 1 spot amongst the two? Not and easy one to answer considering both the Khans are ruling big time at the box-office. We attempt to track down their business records and market value to assess and analyze their star power.
Current Records

In the past couple of years, both Aamir and Shah Rukh have constantly delivered hits at the box-office. Aamir had Rang De Basanti, Fanaa and Taare Zameen Par to boast of, while Shah Rukh had a steady run with Don, Chak De India and Om Shanti Om. The last dud that they both encountered was in 2005 when Aamir’s much-hyped film Mangal Pandey flopped and SRK’s Paheli failed.

Last year, SRK’s Om Shanti Om did a gross business of Rs 160 crores worldwide and became the highest grossing Hindi film in the overseas territory. Aamir’s offbeat attempt Taare Zameen Par proved to be a good gamble collecting around Rs 95 crores worldwide.

OSO was an instant hit while TZP was a slow starter though soon gained momentum. Interestingly, both, SRK and Aamir produced their respective films. And with their success stories both continued to be the most popular and saleable actors of Bollywood.
Aamir is content oriented, SRK is business oriented

Aamir has always been known as an very choosy actor. Though he commands a big fee, for him money is only secondary. Recently he was offered Rs 20 crore for one film by a big corporate house. While this was a deal-to-die-for, Aamir refused it just because the corporate did not have any script ready with them.

On the other hand SRK is aware of his worth and understands the fact that people make money with his star power. So he takes stakes in his own films or offers to make them under his own production banner. “Main Hoon Na was perhaps the first film where he started doing this”, says trade analyst Atul Mohan.

“Venus was to produce the film initially but SRK stepped in as the producer and made Venus co-producers”. This way he ensures that his star power benefits him the most and he receives the maximum returns.
SRK believes in profit-sharing

Earlier SRK used to take the overseas rights and assign them to Eros. But now he believes in profit sharing. A part of his remuneration comes in the form of stakes in the profits of his film. While this can prove risky if the film flops, SRK seems to be confident enough of his brand value.

Shah Rukh also openly admitted, “If someone makes Rs 50 crores from me, then I have the right to ask for at least 25 crores from it”. If sources are to be believed SRK will be sharing profits in Yash Raj’s forthcoming film Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi as well. Only someone of the stature of SRK can command a profit-share from someone as big as Yash Raj.
Aamir believes in brand-sharing

Aamir too has ways of thinking beyond the regular boundaries when it comes to raking in moolah from his films. An industry insider on condition of anonymity says, “Apart from his remuneration, Aamir Khan also charges 30% money on any brand that is promoted in his film. While other actors haven’t realized the potential of this deal, Aamir takes a considerable amount of every product endorsed in the film at the producer’s expense. Other actors promote these brands for free, but Aamir has the power to command for share from in-film branding too”. Unlike, profit-sharing there isn’t any risk involved in brand-sharing.

Usually for in-film branding deals, the marketing company that gets the deal done between the brand and the film usually takes a 15% share of the deal. But when it comes to Aamir’s films, the brokerage goes down to 10.5%. Producers state the reason being the percentage share given to Aamir Khan on the in-film deals. Since they lose out money to Aamir, they try to compensate it by reducing the percentage share of the marketing agencies in between.
Shah Rukh has his camp, Aamir is open to all

If one observes Shah Rukh’s filmography in the last five years, he has mostly done films produced either by close friends Karan Johar and the Chopras or his own production house - Red Chillies. He is more camp-based with the camps being some of the biggest in the business.

Aamir isn’t associated with any camp and has not always restricted himself to big banners. He usually likes to work with smaller and relatively new people (Taare Zameen Par, Ghajini) on whom he can dictate terms.
SRK believes in quantity, Aamir in quality

Shah Rukh has the ability to multitask with his immense energy-levels. He can indulge himself in films, production, endorsements, cricket leagues, world tours and promotional events simultaneously.

Aamir on the other hand has always been known for his slow and steady approach. He invented the idea of doing one-film-at-a-time when actors were juggling between multiple projects. And with less quantity on his hands, Aamir concentrates more on quality which has got him the ‘perfectionist’ tag and at times even the ‘intrusive’ label.

A trade expert says, “While other actors are all into multi-film deals, Aamir does just one film in a year. So he has to get his money back through the single film that he is related to. And with one film at a time, he has all the time in the world to work and rework on his films till the perfectionist in him is satisfied. So he focuses all his energies in getting the best from this one film”.

He goes on to add, “If I had to compare the working style of Aamir and Shah Rukh Khan, I would say Shah Rukh is ‘get set go’. With Aamir its get, set, come back to get, try again to set and there is no go.” As Shah Rukh himself confesses, “Aamir is more intellectual and intelligent, but I’m more instinctive”.
Branded rivals

Shah Rukh Khan is undoubtedly at the number one position, at least as far as the number of brands he is endorsing is concerned. He is the ambassador of almost every other product. And when rival companies of the brands endorsed by Shah Rukh want a contender who is equally powerful as the king, their first choice happens to be Aamir. In other words, if there’s any actor who can give competition to SRK, it’s none other than Aamir Khan.

Both the actors have their own market value but interestingly they have always featured in rival brands. SRK endorses Pepsi while Aamir promotes Coke. SRK has Nokia while Aamir supports Samsung, SRK is endorsing Hyundai and Aamir endorses Toyota.